Fixing the Stench from Pisa to Florence: Visualizing Medici Power through Swamp Drainage Imagery

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-28-2025

Department 1

Art

Abstract

Negotiating the waters of early modern Tuscany, a region that suffered from terrible flooding and fetid marshlands, was of key importance to Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici. This study explores visual representations relating to the unglamorous task of swamp drainage, a subject crafted into complex and lofty works worthy of celebrating Medici rule. Such a feat had no clear visual traditions, so artists and humanists came up with creative strategies in portraying and describing it, calling upon mythological deities, literary and Biblical figures, contemporary maps and even the burlesque. Marshland reclamation could resemble military conquest, architectural construction, or semi-divine heroics. This study looks anew at the associations of power, wealth and control behind the context and metaphors used, emphasizing the unpleasantness of such sites, the need for firmness and the rule of law, and the ensuing rewards that legitimized such actions. The pivotal role of art patron and humanist Luca Martini in Pisa is examined, setting the stage for subsequent works in Florence under Cosimo I.

DOI

10.1098/rsnr.2024.0047

ISBN/ISSN

0035-9149

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