The House of Medici or Famiglia de' Medici (; or ) was a political dynasty, banking family and later royal house that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the late 14th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of the Tuscan countryside, gradually rising until they were able to found the Medici Bank. The bank was the largest in Europe during the 15th century, seeing the Medici gain political power in Florence — though ''officially'' they remained simply citizens rather than monarchs.

The Medici produced four Popes of the Catholic Church, two regent queens of France and in 1531 the family became hereditary Dukes of Florence. In 1569, the duchy was elevated to a grand duchy after territorial expansion. They ruled the Grand Duchy of Tuscany from its inception until 1737, with the death of Gian Gastone de' Medici. The grand duchy witnessed degrees of economic growth under the earlier grand dukes, but by the time of Cosimo III de' Medici, Tuscany was fiscally bankrupt.

Their wealth and influence initially derived from the textile trade guided by the guild of the ''Arte della Lana''. Like other signore families they dominated their city's government. They were able to bring Florence under their family's power, allowing for an environment where art and humanism could flourish. They fostered and inspired the birth of the Italian Renaissance along with other families of Italy, such as the Visconti and Sforza of Milan, the Este of Ferrara, and the Gonzaga of Mantua.

The Medici Bank was one of the most prosperous and most respected institutions in Europe. There are some estimates that the Medici family were the wealthiest family in Europe for a period of time. From this base, they acquired political power initially in Florence and later in wider Italy and Europe. A notable contribution to the profession of accounting was the improvement of the general ledger system through the development of the double-entry bookkeeping system for tracking credits and debits. This system was first used by accountants working for the Medici family in Florence.

History.

Origins

The Medici family came from the agricultural Mugello region, north of Florence, being mentioned for the first time in a document of 1230.The origin of the name is uncertain, although ''Medici'' is the plural of ''medico'', meaning "medical doctor".

Rise to power

The Medici family was connected to most other elite families of the time through strategic marriages, partnerships, or employment, as a result of which the Medici family had a position of centrality in the social network: several families had systematic access to the rest of the elite families only through the Medici, perhaps similar to banking relationships. This has been suggested as a reason for the rise of the Medici family. Members of the family rose to some prominence in the early 14th century in the wool trade, especially with France and Spain. Despite the presence of some Medici in the city's government institutions, they were still far less notable than other outstanding families such as the Albizzi or the Strozzi. One Salvestro de' Medici was speaker of the woolmakers' guild during the Ciompi revolt, and one Antonio was exiled from Florence in 1396. The involvement in another plot in 1400 caused all branches of the family to be banned from Florentine politics for twenty years, with the exception of two: from one of the latter, that of Averardo de' Medici, originated the Medici dynasty.

15th century

Averardo's son, Giovanni di Bicci, increased the wealth of the family through his creation of the Medici Bank, and became one of the richest men in the city of Florence. Although he never held any political charge, he gained strong popular support for the family through his support for the introduction of a proportional taxing system. Giovanni's son Cosimo the Elder took over in 1434 as gran maestro, and the Medici became unofficial heads of state of the Florentine republic.

"Cosimo, Piero, and Lorenzo, three successive generations of the Medici, ruled over Florence through the greater part of the 15th century, without altogether abolishing representative government, yet while clearly dominating it." These three members of the Medici family had great skills in the management of such a "restive and independent a city" as Florence, but "when Lorenzo died in 1492, his son Piero proved quite incapable, and within two years he and his supporters were forced into exile [with] a republican government replac[ing] him."

Piero de' Medici (1416–1469), Cosimo's son, stayed in power for only five years (1464–1469). He was called "Piero the Gouty" because of the gout that infected his foot, and it eventually led to his death. Unlike his father, Piero had little interest in the arts. Due to his illness, he mostly stayed at home bedridden, and therefore did little to further the Medici control of Florence while in power. As such, Medici rule stagnated until the next generation, when Piero's son Lorenzo took over. Piero's illegitimate son, Lenihanio, fled from Italy and lived in the Alps for 15 years.

Lorenzo de' Medici (1449–1492), called "the Magnificent", was more capable of leading and ruling a city; however, he neglected the family banking business, leading to its ultimate ruin. To ensure the continuance of his family's success, Lorenzo planned his children's future careers for them. He groomed the headstrong Piero II to follow as his successor in civil leadership; Giovanni (future Pope Leo X) was placed in the church at an early age; and his daughter Maddalena was provided with a sumptuous dowry when she made the politically advantageous marriage to a son of Pope Innocent VIII. There was a conspiracy in 1478 to kill Lorenzo with his brother Giuliano during Easter services, the assassination attempt ending with the death of Giuliano and only injuring Lorenzo (later Giuliano and Lorenzo were buried together in the Medici Chapel). The conspiracy involved the Pazzi and Salviati families, who were both rival banking families seeking to end the Medici influence, the priest presiding over the church services, the Archbishop of Pisa and even Pope Sixtus IV to a degree. The conspirators approached Sixtus IV in the hopes of gaining his approval, as he and the Medici had a long rivalry themselves, which the pope refused to officially give but allowed the plot to proceed nonetheless without interfering, and, after the failed assassination of Lorenzo, also gave dispensation for crimes in the service of the church. After this, Lorenzo adopted his illegitimate son, Giulio de' Medici (1478–1535), the future Clement VII. Unfortunately, all Lorenzo's careful planning fell apart to some degree under the incompetent Piero II, who took over as the head of Florence after his father Lorenzo's death. Piero was responsible for the expulsion of the Medici from 1494-1512.

16th Century

This exile lasted only until 1512, however, and the "senior" branch of the family — those descended from Cosimo the Elder — were able to rule on and off until the assassination of Alessandro de' Medici, first Duke of Florence, in 1537. This century-long rule was only interrupted on two occasions (between 1494–1512 and 1527–1530), when popular revolts sent the Medici into exile. Power then passed to the "junior" Medici branch — those descended from Lorenzo the Elder, younger son of Giovanni di Bicci, starting with his great-great-grandson Cosimo I the Great. The Medici's rise to power was chronicled in detail by Benedetto Dei. Cosimo and his father started the Medici foundations in banking, manufacturing - including a form of franchises - wealth, art, cultural patronage, and in the Papacy that ensured their success for generations. At least half, probably more, of Florence's people were employed by them and their foundational branches in business.

However, the Medici remained masters of Italy through their two famous 16th century popes, Leo X and Clement VII, who were ''de facto'' rulers of both Rome and Florence. They were both patrons of the arts, but in the religious field they proved unable to stem the advance of Martin Luther's ideas. Clement VII was the pope during the sack of Rome by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, and later was forced to crown him. Clement frequently changed his alliances between the Empire and France, which eventually led him to marry off his first cousin, twice removed, Catherine de' Medici, to the son of Francis I of France, the future Henry II of France. This led to the Medici blood being transferred, through Catherine's daughters, to the royal family of Spain through Elisabeth of Valois, and the House of Lorraine through Claude of Valois. Another Medici became Pope: Alessandro Ottaviano de' Medici (Leo XI).

The most outstanding figure of the 16th century Medici was Cosimo I, who, coming from relatively modest beginnings in the Mugello, rose to supremacy in the whole of Tuscany, conquering the Florentines' most hated rival Siena and founding the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Cosimo purchased a portion of the island of Elba from the Republic of Genoa and based the Tuscan navy there. He died in 1574, succeeded by his elder surviving son Francesco. His inability to produce male heirs led to the succession of his younger brother, Ferdinando, upon his death in 1587. Francesco married Johanna of Austria, and had Eleonora de' Medici, Duchess of Mantua, and Marie de' Medici, Queen of France and of Navarre. Through the latter, every succeeding French monarch (bar the Napoleons) are descended from Francesco.

Ferdinando eagerly assumed the government of Tuscany. He commanded the draining of the Tuscan marshlands, built a road network in Southern Tuscany and cultivated trade in Leghorn. To augment the Tuscan silk industry, he oversaw the planting of Mulberry trees along the major roads (silk worms feed on Mulberry leaves). He shifted Tuscany away from Habsburg hegemony by marrying the first non-Habsburg candidate since Alessandro de' Medici, Duke of Florence, Christina of Lorraine, a granddaughter of Catherine de' Medici. The Spanish reaction was to construct a citadel on their portion of the island of Elba. To strengthen the new Franco-Tuscan alliance, he married his niece, Marie, to Henry IV of France. Henry explicitly stated that he would defend Tuscany from Spanish aggression, but later reneged. Ferdinando was forced to marry his heir, Cosimo, to Maria Maddalena of Austria to assuage Spain (where Maria Maddalena's sister was the incumbent Queen consort). Ferdinando sponsored a Tuscan expedition to the New World with the intention of establishing a Tuscan colony. Despite all of these incentives to economic growth and prosperity, the population of Florence at the dawn of the 17th century was a mere 75,000, far smaller than the other capitals of Italy: Rome, Milan, Venice, Palermo and Naples. Francesco and Ferdinando, due to lax distinction between Medici and Tuscan state property, are thought to be wealthier than their ancestor, Cosimo de' Medici, the founder of the dynasty. The Grand Duke alone had the prerogative to exploit the state's mineral and salt resources. The fortunes of the Medici were directly tied to the Tuscan economy.

17th Century

Ferdinando, despite no longer being a cardinal, exercised much influence at successive conclaves. In 1605, Ferdinando succeeded in getting his candidate, Alessandro de' Medici, elected Pope Leo XI. He died the same month, but his successor, Pope Paul V, was also pro-Medici. Ferdinando's pro-Papal foreign policy, however, had drawbacks. Tuscany was overcome with religious orders, all of whom were not obliged to pay taxes. Ferdinando died in 1609, leaving an affluent realm; his inaction in international affairs, however, would have long-reaching consequences down the line.

In France, Marie de' Medici was acting as regent for her son, Louis XIII. Her pro-Habsburg policy was repudiated by Louis in 1617. She lived the rest of her life deprived of any political influence.

His successor, Cosimo II, reigned for less than 12 years. He married Maria Maddalena of Austria, with whom he had his eight children, including Margherita de' Medici, Ferdinando II de' Medici, and an Anna de' Medici. He is best remembered as the patron of astronomer Galileo Galilei, whose 1610 treatise, Sidereus Nuncius, was dedicated to him. He died of tuberculosis in 1621.

As his successor, his elder son, Ferdinando, was not yet of legal maturity, Maria Maddalena and his grandmother, Christina of Lorraine, acted as regents. Their collective regency is known as the ''Turtici''. Maria Maddelana's temperament was analogous to Christina's. Together, they aligned Tuscany with the Papacy; re-doubled the Tuscan clergy; and allowed the trial of Galileo Galilei to occur. Upon the death of the last Duke of Urbino, instead of claiming the duchy for Ferdinando, who was married to the Duke of Urbino's granddaughter, and heiress, Vittoria della Rovere, they permitted it to be annexed by Pope Urban VIII. In 1626, they banned any Tuscan subject from being educated outside the Grand Duchy, a law later resurrected by Maria Maddalena's grandson, Cosimo III. Harold Acton, an Anglo-Italian historian, ascribes the decline of Tuscany to them.

Grand Duke Ferdinado was obsessed with new technology, and had several hygrometers, barometers, thermometers, and telescopes installed in the Palazzo Pitti. In 1657, Leopoldo de' Medici, the Grand Duke’s youngest brother, established the Accademia del Cimento; set up to attract scientists from all over Tuscany to Florence for mutual study.

Tuscany participated in the Wars of Castro (the last time Medicean Tuscany proper was involved in a conflict) and inflicted a defeat on the forces of Urban VIII in 1643. The treasury was so empty that when the Castro mercenaries were paid for the state could no longer afford to pay interest on government bonds. The interest rate was lowered by 0.75%. The economy was so decrepit that barter trade became prevalent in rural market places.

Ferdinando died on 23 May 1670 of apoplexy and dropsy. He was interred in the Basilica of San Lorenzo, the Medici's necropolis. At the time of his death, the population of the grand duchy was 730,594; the streets were lined with grass and the buildings on the verge of collapse in Pisa.

Ferdinando's marriage to Vittoria della Rovere produced two children: Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and Francesco Maria de' Medici, Duke of Rovere and Montefeltro. Upon her death in 1694, her allodial possessions, the Duchies of Rovere and Montefeltro, passed to her younger son.

18th century: the fall of the dynasty

Cosimo's reign was marked by a sharp conservative reaction. He persecuted the Jewish population of Tuscany and imposed crippling taxes upon the populace. Tuscany's decline climaxed in his reign. He married Marguerite Louise d'Orléans, a granddaughter of Henry IV of France and Marie de' Medici. This union was exceedingly discontent. It produced three children, notably Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici, Electress Palatine and the last Medicean Grand Duke of Tuscany, Gian Gastone de' Medici.

Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine, Anna Maria Luisa's spouse, successfully requisitioned the dignity ''Royal Highness'' for the Grand Duke and his family in 1691, despite the fact that they had no claim to any kingdom. Cosimo frequently paid the Holy Roman Emperor, his nominal feudal overlord, exorbitant dues. He sent munitions to the Emperor during the Battle of Vienna.

In 1705, the grand ducal treasury was virtually bankrupt and the population of Florence declined by 50%, and the population of the grand duchy as a whole by an estimated 40%. The Medici lacked male heirs. Cosimo desperately tried to reach a settlement with the European powers. Tuscany’s legal status was very complicated, the area of the grand duchy formerly comprising the Republic of Siena was technically a Spanish fief, while the territory of the old Republic of Florence was thought to be under imperial suzerainty. Upon the death of his first son, Cosimo contemplated restoring the Florentine republic, either upon Anna Maria Luisa's death, or on his own, if he predeceased her. The restoration of the republic would entail resigning Siena to the Holy Roman Empire, but, regardless; it was vehemently endorsed by his government. Europe largely ignored Cosimo’s plan, only England and the Dutch Republic gave any credence to it, and the plan ultimately died with Cosimo III in 1723.

On 4 April 1718, England, France and the Dutch Republic (and later Austria) selected Don Carlos of Spain, the elder child of Elisabeth Farnese and Philip V of Spain, as the Tuscan heir. By 1722, the Electress was not even acknowledged as heiress, and Cosimo was reduced to spectator at the conferences for Tuscany's future. On 25 October 1723, six days before his death, Grand Duke Cosimo disseminated a final proclamation commanding that Tuscany shall stay independent; Anna Maria Luisa shall succeed uninhibited to Tuscany after Gian Gastone; The Grand Duke reserves the right to choose his successor. Alas, these stanzas were completely ignored and he died a few days later.

Gian Gastone despised the Electress for engineering his catastrophic marriage to Anna Maria Franziska of Saxe-Lauenburg, while she abhorred her brother's liberal policies; he repealed all of his father's anti-Semitic statutes. Gian Gastone revelled in upsetting her. On 25 October 1731, a Spanish detachment occupied Florence on behalf of Don Carlos, who disembarked in Tuscany in December of the same year.

The ''Ruspanti'', Gian Gastone's decrepit entourage, loathed the Electress, and she them. Violante, Gian Gastone's sister-in-law, tried to withdraw the Grand Duke from the ''Ruspanti'' sphere of influence by organising banquets. His conduct at these was less than regal, he often vomited repeatedly into his napkin, belched, and regaled those present with inappropriate jokes. Following a sprained ankle in 1731, he remained confined to his bed for the rest of his life. The bed, oft smelling of faeces, was occasionally cleaned by Violante.

In 1736, following the War of the Polish Succession, Don Carlos was disbarred from Tuscany, and Francis III of Lorraine was made heir in his stead. In January 1737, the Spanish troops withdrew from Tuscany, and were replaced by Austrians.

Gian Gastone expired on 9 July 1737, surrounded by prelates and his sister. Anna Maria Luisa was offered a nominal regency by the Prince de Craon until the new Grand Duke could peregrinate to Tuscany, but declined. Upon her brother's death, she received all the House of Medici's allodial possessions.

Anna Maria Luisa signed the ''Patto di Famiglia'' on October 31, 1737. In collaboration with the Holy Roman Emperor and Grand Duke Francis of Lorraine, she willed all the personal property of the Medici to the Tuscan state, provided that nothing was ever removed from Florence.

The "Lorrainers", as the occupying forces were called, were popularly loathed. The Regent, the Prince de Craon, allowed the Electress to live unperturbed in the Pitti. She occupied herself with financing, and overseeing, the construction of the Basilica of San Lorenzo, started in 1604 by Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, to the tune of 1,000 crowns per week.

She donated much of her fortune to charity; £4,000 a month. On 19 February 1743, Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici, Dowager Electress Palatine, died. The Grand Ducal line of the House of Medici died with her. The Florentines grieved her. She was interred in the crypt that she helped to complete, San Lorenzo.

The extinction of the main Medici dynasty and the accession in 1737 of Francis Stephen, Duke of Lorraine and husband of Maria Theresa of Austria, led to Tuscany's temporary inclusion in the territories of the Austrian crown. The line of the principi di Ottajano, an extant branch of the House of Medici who were eligible to inherit the grand duchy of Tuscany when the last male of the senior branch died in 1737, but for intervention of Europe's major powers which allocated the sovereignty of Florence elsewhere. Consequently, it became a secundogeniture of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty. The first Grand Duke of the new dynasty, Francis I, was a great-great-great-grandson of Francesco I de' Medici, thus continuing the Medicean Dynasty through the female line on the throne of Tuscany. The Hapsburgs were deposed for the Bourbon-Parma in 1801 (themselves deposed in 1807), restored at the Congress of Vienna; Tuscany became a province of the United Kingdom of Italy in 1861. However, several extant branches of the House of Medici currently continue to exist including the Princes of Ottajano, the Medici Tornaquinci, and the Verona Medici Counts of Caprara and Gavardo.

Legacy

The biggest accomplishments of the Medici were in the sponsorship of art and architecture, mainly early and High Renaissance art and architecture. The Medici were responsible for the majority of Florentine art during their reign. Their money was significant because during this period, artists generally only made their works when they received commissions in advance. Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici, the first patron of the arts in the family, aided Masaccio and commissioned Brunelleschi for the reconstruction of the Basilica of San Lorenzo, Florence in 1419. Cosimo the Elder's notable artistic associates were Donatello and Fra Angelico. The most significant addition to the list over the years was Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564), who produced work for a number of Medici, beginning with Lorenzo the Magnificent, who was said to be extremely fond of the young Michelangelo, inviting him to study the family collection of antique sculpture. Lorenzo also served as patron to Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) for seven years. Indeed Lorenzo was an artist in his own right, and author of poetry and song; his support of the arts and letters is seen as a high point in Medici patronage.

After Lorenzo's death the puritanical Dominican friar, Girolamo Savonarola rose to prominence, warning Florentines against excessive luxury. Under Savonarola's fanatical leadership, many great works were "voluntarily" destroyed in the Bonfire of the Vanities (February 7, 1497). The following year, on May 23, 1498, Savonarola and two young supporters were burned at the stake in the Piazza della Signoria, the same location as his bonfire. In addition to commissions for art and architecture, the Medici were prolific collectors and today their acquisitions form the core of the Uffizi museum in Florence. In architecture, the Medici are responsible for some notable features of Florence; including the Uffizi Gallery, the Boboli Gardens, the Belvedere, and the Palazzo Medici, Medici Chapel

Later, in Rome, the Medici Popes continued in the family tradition of patronizing artists. Pope Leo X would chiefly commission works from Raphael. Pope Clement VII commissioned Michelangelo to paint the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel just before the pontiff's death in 1534. Eleanor of Toledo, princess of Spain and wife of Cosimo I the Great, purchased the Pitti Palace from Buonaccorso Pitti in 1550. Cosimo in turn patronized Vasari who erected the Uffizi Gallery in 1560 and founded the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno – ("Academy of the Arts of Drawing") in 1563. Marie de' Medici, widow of Henry IV of France and mother of Louis XIII, is the subject of a commissioned cycle of paintings known as the Marie de' Medici cycle, painted for the Luxembourg Palace by court painter Peter Paul Rubens in 1622-23.

Although none of the Medici themselves were scientists, the family is well known to have been the patrons of the famous Galileo Galilei, who tutored multiple generations of Medici children, and was an important figurehead for his patron's quest for power. Galileo's patronage was eventually abandoned by Ferdinando II, when the Inquisition accused Galileo of heresy. However, the Medici family did afford the scientist a safe haven for many years. Galileo named the four largest moons of Jupiter after four Medici children he tutored, although the names Galileo used are not the names currently used.

Titles

Designation and details

List of heads of the Medici

''Signore'' in the Republic of Florence

{| width=90% class="wikitable" ! width=8% | Portrait ! width=20% | Name ! width=7% | From ! width=7% | Until ! width=20% | Relationship with predecessor |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Cosimo de' Medici (''Pater Patriae'') ||align="center"|1434||align="center"|1 August 1464||son of Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici who was not as prominently involved in Florentine politics, rather more involved in the financial area. |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Piero I de' Medici (''Piero the Gouty'') ||align="center"|1 August 1464||align="center"|2 December 1469||eldest son of Cosimo de' Medici. |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Lorenzo I de' Medici(''Lorenzo the Magnificent'') ||align="center"|2 December 1469||align="center"|9 April 1492||eldest son of Piero I de' Medici. |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Piero II de' Medici(''Piero the Unfortunate'') ||align="center"|9 April 1492||align="center"|8 November 1494||eldest son of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Overthrown when Charles VIII of France invaded as a full republic was restored, first under the theocracy of Girolamo Savonarola and then statesman Piero Soderini. |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici ||align="center"|31 August 1512||align="center"|9 March 1513||brother of Piero the Unfortunate, second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Elected to the Papacy, becoming ''Pope Leo X''. |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Giuliano de' Medici, Duke of Nemours ||align="center"|9 March 1513||align="center"|17 March 1516||brother of Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, third son of Lorenzo the Magnificent. |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Lorenzo II de' Medici, Duke of Urbino ||align="center"|17 March 1516||align="center"|4 May 1519||nephew of Giuliano de' Medici, Duke of Nemours, son of Piero the Unfortunate. |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Cardinal Giulio de' Medici ||align="center"|4 May 1519||align="center"|19 November 1523||cousin of Lorenzo II de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, son of Giuliano de' Medici who was the brother of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Elected to the Papacy, becoming ''Pope Clement VII''. |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici ||align="center"|19 November 1523||align="center"|24 October 1529||cousin of Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, illegitimate son of Giuliano de' Medici, Duke of Nemours. |- |}

Duke of Florence

{| width=90% class="wikitable" ! width=8% | Portrait ! width=20% | Name ! width=7% | From ! width=7% | Until ! width=20% | Relationship with predecessor |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Alessandro de' Medici, Duke of Florence (''il Moro'') ||align="center"|24 October 1529||align="center"|6 January 1537||cousin of Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, illegitimate son of Lorenzo II de' Medici, Duke of Urbino or Pope Clement VII. Acting ''signore'' during imperial Siege of Florence, made Duke in 1531. |- |}

Grand Dukes of Tuscany

{| width=90% class="wikitable" ! width=8% | Portrait ! width=20% | Name ! width=7% | From ! width=7% | Until ! width=20% | Relationship with predecessor |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany ||align="center"|6 January 1537||align="center"|21 April 1574||distant cousin of Alessandro de' Medici, son of Giovanni dalle Bande Nere. ''dei Popolani'' line descended from Lorenzo the Elder, brother of Cosimo de' Medici. Duke of Florence, 1537—1569, until being made Grand Duke of Tuscany. |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany ||align="center"|21 April 1574||align="center"|17 October 1587||eldest son of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany ||align="center"|17 October 1587||align="center"|17 February 1609||brother of Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, son of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Cosimo II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany ||align="center"|17 February 1609||align="center"|28 February 1621||eldest son of Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Ferdinando II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany ||align="center"|28 February 1621||align="center"|23 May 1670||eldest son of Cosimo II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany ||align="center"|23 May 1670||align="center"|31 October 1723||eldest son of Ferdinando II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Gian Gastone de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany ||align="center"|31 October 1723||align="center"|9 July 1737||second son of Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. |- |}

See also

Republic of Florence

Albizzi

Duchy of Florence

Alberti

Italian Renaissance

Lorenzo de' Medici Timeline

Medici Chapel

Michelangelo and the Medici

Medici family tree

Grand Duchy of Tuscany

Pazzi

List of popes from the Medici family

Footnotes

References

Further reading

Jean Lucas-Dubreton, ''Daily Life in Florence in the Time of the Medici.''

External links

The Medici Archive Project

The Medici Archive Project Documentary Sources for the Arts and Humanities in the Medici Granducal Archive: 1537-1743

Prince Ottaviano de' Medici:Solving a 417-year-old murder mystery (May 4, 2004)

The Moscow Florentine Society

Medici Family Tree, featuring portraits and bios of key members of the Medici Dynasty, 1400-1737

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Category:Tuscany Category:Papal families Category:European royal families Category:Culture in Florence Category:History of Florence Category:History of Italy Category:Business families

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name	Isabelle de Borchgrave
birth date	1946
birth place	Brussels, Belgium
nationality	Belgian
field	painting, paper sculpture, installation art, collage
training	Centre des Arts Décoratifs, Brussels, Belgium. Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium
website	}}

Isabelle de Borchgrave (born 1946 in Brussels, Belgium) is a prominent Belgian artist and sculptor, best known for her colorful paintings and intricately painted paper sculptures.

Early life

Countess Isabelle de Borchgrave d'Altena was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1946. Since early childhood, she had a passion for drawing. Pencils were her first toys, and she made drawings on everything in sight, including the walls and floor of her room. She began her studies at age 14 at the Centre des Arts Décoratifs, and, later – at Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, where her days were filled with drawing still-lifes and form models. De Borchgrave worked in advertising for less than a year after she had finished studying, and then made clothes for her friends before branching out into interior design. She later established her own studio, designing dresses, scarves, jewelry and accessories. In particular, de Borchgrave specialized in designing fabrics.

Career

Following a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1994, Isabelle dreamed up paper costumes. While keeping her brushes in hand and her paintings in mind, she worked on four big collections, all in paper and trompe-l'œil, each of which set the scene for a very different world. "Papiers à la Mode" (Paper in Fashion), the first, was a collaborative effort with the renowned Canadian costume designer Rita Brown and took a fresh look at 300 years of fashion history, from Elizabeth I to Coco Chanel. "Mariano Fortuny" dealt with the world of 19th century Venice, paying particular attention to the elegant plissés and veils. "I Medici" was a trompe-l'œil installation of famous Florentine figures in their ceremonial dress, who made the Renaissance a luminous period, with intricate gold-braiding, pearls, silk and velvet. Then came Sergei Diaghilev's "Ballets Russes," that paid tribute to the illustrious impressario, as well as the artists Pablo Picasso, Léon Bakst and Henri Matisse, all of whom designed costumes for this ballet company.

A major turning point in de Borchgrave's career came in 1998 with her exhibition, "Papier à la Mode," at Musée de l'Impression sur Etoffes in Mulhouse, France. It consisted of thirty lifesize outfits made of painted paper. "Papier à la Mode," which ''The New York Times'' called "pure delight", toured France, the United States and Asia. As it traveled, de Borchgrave expanded it - with costumes from the wardrobes of Queen Elizabeth I of England, Marie Antoinette and the Empress Eugénie, consort of Napoleon III, while it was in Japan, and adding Ottoman kaftans in Turkey.

Over the years, de Borchgrave's paper creations have ranged from an elaborate headdress in the shape of a caravel in full sail, worn by Marie Antoinette, to some oversized roses for John Galliano's haute couture show for Christian Dior, to a subtle, white on white wedding dress train worn by HRH Princess Annemarie of Bourbon-Parma at her wedding with Prince Carlos of Bourbon-Parma. She was also commissioned to recreate Jackie Kennedy's wedding gown for the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston. "It was dusty and fragile, wrapped up in black tissue paper," de Borchgrave recalls in a story in ''Daily Telegraph''. "The silk was dead, you couldn't touch it any more. It was preserved like a relic. The original is dead, but the paper one brings it to life again." In 2004, de Borchgrave designed and made a delicate, painted paper dress for Queen Fabiola of Belgium, which the queen wore to the wedding of Prince Felipe of Spain in Madrid.

In 2008, a colorful installation of over 80 pieces by Isabelle de Borchgrave opened at the Fortuny Museum in Venice, Italy. Entitled "Un mondo di carta - Isabelle de Borchgrave incontra Mariano Fortuny," ("A World of Paper: Isabelle de Borchgrave Meets Mariano Fortuny") the exhibition was spread over the historic palazzo's three floors and included versions of Fortuny's classic, finely pleated "Delphos" dress, as well as robes, accessories, shoes, boots, a stage set, an oriental tent, rugs, cushions, a lute and antique swords, often intermingling with the master's own works and collection, and all made of painted paper. Reviewing the installation for ''The World of Interiors'' magazine, author Barbara Stoeltie wrote, "Isabelle de Borchgrave freely shares her adventures in beauty – a beauty that, beneath her gaze and from her fingertips, pours out unstintingly. Tubes of paint, boxes of pastels, sheaves of brushes of all sizes and all kinds of glue gleefully take part in her marvellous game. The work itself rejoices."

In 2008, a lavishly illustrated hardcover monograph "Paper Illusions: The Art of Isabelle de Borchgrave" was published in the United States by Abrams. Within weeks, the book was declared by ''The New York Times'' to be one of "the best gift books of 2008" and "among the most unusual and fascinating... seen in a long time." The monograph was authored by the well-known writer and photographer duo, Barbara and René Stoeltie, with an introduction of Hubert de Givenchy, who said of de Borchgrave, "Isabelle is one of a kind; with a single sheet of paper, she creates the most beautiful dresses, the finest costumes, or, simply, a chain of white roses...Whether it becomes a shoe, a hat or a few strings of pearls, [Isabelle plays] with paper as a virtuoso plays an instrument."

In February 2011, a large scale installation entitled "Pulp Fashion: The Art of Isabelle de Borchgrave" opened to great acclaim at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco. The retrospective exhibition, described by the museum officials as "trompe l'oeil masterpieces," is presented in six sections: "The Artist's Studio" is recreated to provide insight into de Borchgrave's creative process; "In White" showcases the purity of craftsmanship in a selection of nine dresses devoid of color; "Papiers à la Mode" features iconic looks from key periods in fashion history, and legendary designers such as Charles Worth, Paul Poiret and Coco Chanel are represented by signature pieces; "Fortuny" is an immersive environment created under a paper tent populated by recreations of Fortuny's famed pleated and draped gowns; "The Medici" is the artist's most extravagant series, with elaborate velvets, needlework lace, ropes of pearls, and intricate coiffures transformed into paper sculptures, and "Inspiration"— de Borchgrave's latest body of work, inspired by four paintings from the Legion of Honor's collection that she admired during her visit to the museum in the summer of 2010. The paintings were: Massimo Stanzione, Woman in Neapolitan Costume, ca. 1635, Konstantin Makovsky, The Russian Bride's Attire, 1889, Jacob Ferdinand Voet, Anna Caffarelli Minuttiba, ca. 1675, and Anthony van Dyck, Marie Claire de Cory and Child, 1634. Quoted in the ''San Francisco Chronicle'', John Buchanan, the Museum's director, called the exhibition "pure poetry". "This is the coolest thing I've ever seen," he added. The installation, which Isabelle de Borchgrave called "a wink at history," will be on view through 5 June 2011.

In de Borchgrave's art, the starting point is almost always the same: sheets of paper one meter by one and a half meters (3.3 feet by 4.9 feet), which she sets to work on with her brushes and paints on an enormous linen-covered table in her studio in Brussels. "Her colors, reports ''The New York Times,'' "are very much inspired by her travels: reds from the roses of Turkey, earth hues from Egypt, blues from Greece...Borchgrave produces astonishing effects of scintillating color, weight, transparency and texture. Her renderings of diaphanous gauzes are especially astonishing."

Isabelle de Borchgrave's work has been widely collected by major museums and private collectors worldwide. She is represented in the U.S. by the Serge Sorokko Gallery.

Personal life

Isabelle de Borchgrave married Count Werner de Borchgrave d'Altena in 1975. They have two children – a son ( Nicolas ) and a daughter ( Pauline). The couple resides in Brussels, Belgium.

Museum Exhibitions

In 2011, a large scale exhibition "Pulp Fashion" opened at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco, California. In 2011, a paper crinoline dress by Isabelle de Borchgrave was on exhibit at the "Pour Rire ! Daumier, Gavarni, Rops" show at the Félicien Rops Museum in Namur, Belgium. In 2010, a large scale installation "I Medici" opened at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels, Belgium

In 2010, paper sculptures by Isabelle de Borchgrave were on exhibit at the "Shoe, Shoe...Shoes" exhibition at Izegem Museum in Izegem, Belgium.

In 2010, a paper dress by Isabelle de Borchgrave was included in the exhibition "Extending the Runway: Tatiana Sorokko Style" at the Phoenix Art Museum in Phoenix, Arizona. In 2009, "Medici - Il sogno ritorna: Isabelle de Borchgrave a Palazzo Medici Riccardi" exhibition opened at the Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence, Italy. In 2009, Isabelle de Borchgrave's Elizabethan costume created out of painted paper was on display at "Art and Illusions: Masterpieces of Trompe l'Oeil From Antiquity to the Present Day" exhibition at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, Italy. In 2008, a large scale installation "Rêves de Papier - Isabelle de Borchgrave interprète Mariano Fortuny" opened at the Musée des Tissus in Lyon, France, In 2008, "Papier à la Mode" exhibition opened at Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado in Sao Paulo, Brasil. In 2008, "Un mondo di carta - Isabelle de Borchgrave incontra Mariano Fortuny", a large, three floor installation opened at Fortuny Museum in Venice, Italy. In 2007, paper sculptures by Isabelle de Borchgrave, commissioned by the museum, went on exhibit at the "Decorative Arts of the Kings" exhibition at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2007, Isabelle de Borchgrave's paper recreation of Christian Dior's Bar Suit was included at "RRRIPP!! Paper Fashion," exhibition at the Benaki Museum, in Athens, Greece.

In 2005, an exhibition entitled "Papier à la Mode" opened at the Grand Ducal Palace in Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

In 2004, an exhibition entitled "Papier à la Mode" opened at Sadberk Hanım Museum in Istanbul, Turkey.

In 2004, an exhibition entitled "Papier à la Mode" opened at Mode Natie Museum in Antwerp, Belgium.

In 2002, an exhibition entitled "Papiers à la Mode" opened at the Kushiro Art Museum in Hokkaido, Japan.

In 2002, an exhibition entitled "Papiers à la Mode" opened at the Daimaru Museum in Osaka, Japan.

In 2002, an exhibition entitled "Papiers à la Mode" opened at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada. In 2000, an exhibition entitled "Papiers à la Mode" opened at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, UK.

In 2000, an exhibition entitled "Papiers à la Mode" opened at the Flanders Fashion Institute in Antwerp, Belgium.

In 1999, an exhibition entitled "Papiers à la Mode" opened at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts.

In 1999, an exhibition entitled "Papiers à la Mode: Illusions of Fashion," opened at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, NY. In 1998, an exhibition entitled "Papiers à la Mode" opened at the Musée de l'Impression sur Etoffes in Mulhouse, France.

Bibliography

References

External links

Isabelle de Borchgrave: Recent Paintings and Sculptures at Serge Sorokko Gallery

New exhibit features fashions made from paper on ABC KGO-TV

Isabelle de Borchgrave on RTL TVI

IIsabelle de Borchgrave at Palazzo Medici Riccardi on Vimeo

Category:1946 births Category:Contemporary sculptors Category:Installation artists Category:People from Brussels Category:Belgian sculptors Category:Contemporary painters Category:Belgian painters Category:Contemporary artists Category:Women painters Category:Living people

fr:Isabelle de Borchgrave ru:Боршграв, Изабель де

Brian Sewell (born 15 July 1931) is a British art critic and media personality. He writes for the London ''Evening Standard'' and is noted for artistic conservatism and his acerbic view of the Turner Prize and conceptual art. Sewell has been described as "Britain's most famous and controversial art critic".

Early life

Sewell was born and brought up in Kensington, London, and was educated at the independent Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School. Offered a place to read history at Oxford, Sewell chose instead to enter the Courtauld Institute of Art, where he was tutored by Anthony Blunt and became his close friend. Sewell graduated in 1957 and worked at Christie's auction house, specialising in Old Master paintings and drawings. After leaving Christie's he became an art dealer. He did his National Service in the Royal Army Service Corps, in which he was commissioned. He has since been a regular commentator on the ITV series ''Bad Lad's Army'', offering insight into 1950s military life. Like most art critics, Sewell is not actually an artist.

Art criticism

In 1984, he became art critic of the ''Evening Standard'' (replacing avant-garde critic Richard Cork). He won press awards including Critic of the Year in 1988, Arts Journalist of the Year in 1994, the Hawthornden Prize for Art Criticism in 1995 and the Foreign Press Award (Arts) in 2000. In April 2003, he was awarded the George Orwell Prize for his column in the ''Evening Standard''.

In criticisms of the Tate Gallery's art, he coined the phrase, the "Serota Tendency", after its director Nicholas Serota. It was not until the late 1990s that he became a household figure through television, though he was on BBC Radio 4 before then. He is known for formal, old-fashioned diction and anti-populist sentiments. He offended people in Gateshead by claiming an exhibition was too important to be held only at the town's Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art and should be shown to "more sophisticated" audiences in London; he has also disparaged Liverpool as a cultural city.

In 1994, 35 art world signatories wrote a letter to the ''Evening Standard'' attacking Sewell for "homophobia", "misogyny", "demagogy", "hypocrisy", "artistic prejudice", "formulaic insults and predictable scurrility". Signatories included Karsten Schubert, Maureen Paley, Michael Craig-Martin, Angela and Matthew Flowers, Professor Christopher Frayling, Rene Gimpel, Susan Hiller, John Hoyland, Sarah Kent, Nicholas Logsdail, George Melly, Sandy Nairne, Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, Bridget Riley, Michelle Roberts, Richard Shone, Marina Warner, Natalie Wheen, and Rachel Whiteread.

He responded with comments on many of the signatories, saying that Paley was "the curatrix of innumerable silly little Arts Council exhibitions", and that Whiteread was "mortified by my dismissal of her work for the Turner Prize". A letter supporting Sewell from 20 other art world signatories accused the writers of attempted censorship to promote "a relentless programme of neo-conceptual art in all the main London venues".

Sewell's attitude to female artists has been controversial. In July 2008 he was quoted in ''The Independent'' as saying:

"The art market is not sexist. The likes of Bridget Riley and Louise Bourgeois are of the second and third rank. There has never been a first-rank woman artist. Only men are capable of aesthetic greatness. Women make up 50 per cent or more of classes at art school. Yet they fade away in their late 20s or 30s. Maybe it's something to do with bearing children."

Sewell does not hold his tongue regarding his opinions, and has frequently insulted the general public for their views on art. Consequently, he is more known for controversy than art criticism among many. He has issued quotes such as the following regarding public praise for the work of Banksy in Bristol:

"The public doesn't know good from bad. For this city to be guided by the opinion of people who don't know anything about art is lunacy. It doesn't matter if they [the public] like it."

He went on to assert that Banksy himself "should have been put down at birth." Clive Anderson has described him as "a man intent on keeping his Christmas card list nice and short."

Sewell is also known for his disdain for Damien Hirst, describing him as "fucking dreadful".

Television

In 2003, Sewell made a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, as a documentary called ''The Naked Pilgrim'', produced by Wag TV for Channel 5. Although he has not practised for decades, Sewell considers himself a Roman Catholic, prompting an emotional response to the faith of pilgrims at Lourdes. The series attracted large audiences and won the Sandford St. Martin Trust award for Best Religious Programme. Following ''The Naked Pilgrim'' Sewell presented on two more series for Channel 5: ''Brian Sewell's Phantoms & Shadows: 100 Years of Rolls-Royce'' in 2004 and ''Brian Sewell's Grand Tour'', 2006. Sewell also appeared as a guest film reviewer on Channel 5's ''Movie Lounge'', where he frequently savaged films.

In ''Dirty Dalí: A Private View'' on Channel 4 on 3 June 2007, Sewell described his acquaintance with Salvador Dalí in the late 1960s, which included lying in the foetal position without trousers in the armpit of a figure of Christ and masturbating for Dalí, who pretended to take photos while fumbling in his trousers. Sewell has appeared twice as panellist on the BBC's news quiz ''Have I Got News For You?'' and tried to teach cricketer Phil Tufnell about art in ITV's ''Don't Call Me Stupid''.

He acted as Big Brother during 2008's ''Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack''.

Sewell was the voice of Sir Kiftsgate in an episode of the children's cartoon ''The Big Knights''. He also has a programme on Voom HD Network's Art Channel: Gallery HD called ''Brian Sewell's Grand Tour'', in which he tours beautiful cities (primarily in Italy) visiting museums, towns, churches, historic sights, public squares, monuments, profound architectural spots and meeting a local to discuss culture and art. Sewell reflects the 18th century, giving the perspective of what it would have been like as a 'Grand Tourist'. Then he elaborates on what has become of these sights and lost throughout history.

In a 2009 BBC documentary about the so-called North-South Divide, presented by ex-Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, Sewell caused controversy by declaring that the solution to the divide was to send a pox or a plague upon the North so that the people there can all just die quietly.

Television credits

{|class=wikitable !Year!!Programme!!Role!!Broadcaster |- |2007 || Dirty Dalì: A Private View || Art critic || Channel 4 |- |2006 || Timeshift: The Da Vinci Code: The Greatest Story Ever Sold || Art critic || BBC |- |2006 || Movie Lounge || Film critic || Channel 5 |- |2006 || Brian Sewell's Grand Tour (10 episodes) || Presenter || Channel 5 |- |2004 || Brian Sewell's Phantoms & Shadows: 100 Years of Rolls-Royce || Presenter || Channel 5 |- |2003 || The Naked Pilgrim (6 episodes) || Presenter || Channel 5 |- |1996 || The Works: Minette Walters and the Missing Masterpiece || Art historian || BBC |}

Other activities

Sewell is a museum adviser in South Africa, Germany and the United States. He is also a patron of the British charity NORM-UK which raises awareness of circumcision and other forms of surgical alteration of the genitals. Sewell has also provided voice-overs for a variety of television commercials including the Victoria and Albert Museum and feta cheese.

Brian Sewell is also a noted aficionado of classic automobiles, a fan of stock car racing and over several decades has written extensively about cars, classic and contemporary, in the ''Evening Standard'' and elsewhere. In both his TV series, on the pilgrimage to Santiago and the Grand Tour (see above), he drove his venerable Mercedes-Benz 560 SEC coupé.

Personal life

In a television programme broadcast on Channel 4 on 24 July 2007, marking the 40th anniversary of the passing of the Sexual Offences Act 1967 which partially decriminalized homosexuality in England and Wales, Sewell said, "I never came out... but I have slowly emerged". Sewell is bisexual but rather chastises himself for this, describing his attraction to men 'as an "affliction" and a "disability" and [told] readers, "no homosexual has ever chosen this sexual compulsion"'. In the first episode of ''The Naked Pilgrim'' Sewell alluded to the loss of his virginity at the hands of a 60-year-old French woman "who knew what she was doing and was determined"; Sewell was 20 at the time.

In an interview for ''That's Mad'' website, Sewell revealed that he suffers from depression, and as a cure usually just sleeps for a long time during the more severe phases.

John Humphrys, in his book ''Lost for Words'', writes "They (people who deliberately speak 'poshly') try to speak like the Queen or even Brian Sewell, the only man I have ever met who makes the Queen sound common."

References

Category:1931 births Category:Alumni of the Courtauld Institute of Art Category:English art critics Category:English journalists Category:English television personalities Category:English writers Category:Bisexual writers Category:Genital integrity activists Category:LGBT journalists Category:LGBT people from England Category:LGBT television personalities Category:Living people Category:Old Haberdashers Category:People from Kensington Category:Royal Army Service Corps officers

name	Nelson Freire
background	non_vocal_instrumentalist
birth name	Nelson Freire
birth date	October 18, 1944
origin	Brazil
instrument	Piano
genre	Classical
occupation	Classical pianist
label	Decca Classics
website	Official Website }}

Nelson Freire (born October 18, 1944) is a Brazilian classical pianist.

Freire began playing the piano when he was three years old. He replayed from memory pieces his older sister had just performed. His teachers in Brazil were Nise Obino and Lucia Branco, former students of a pupil of Liszt. For his first public recital, at the age of five, Freire chose Mozart's Sonata in A major, K. 331.

In 1957, Freire's performed Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5, at the age of 12. He was awarded 7th place at the Rio de Janeiro International Piano Competition. The jury in this competition included Marguerite Long, Guiomar Novaes and Lili Kraus. After this he left for Vienna to study with Bruno Seidlhofer (who was also the teacher of Friedrich Gulda). By 1964, Freire had won his first prize at the Vianna da Motta International Music Competition in Lisbon, Portugal (ex-aequo with Vladimir Krainev) and he also received the Dinu Lipatti Medal and the Harriet Cohen Medal in London, England.

Freire began his international career in 1959 with recitals and concerts in the major cities of Europe, the United States, Central and South America, Japan and Israel.

He has worked and toured with many of today's leading conductors, including Pierre Boulez, Eugen Jochum, Lorin Maazel, Charles Dutoit, Kurt Masur, André Previn, David Zinman, Václav Neumann, Valery Gergiev, Rudolf Kempe, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Hans Graf, Hugh Wolff, Roberto Carnevale, John Nelson, Seiji Ozawa and Riccardo Chailly.

Freire has made guest appearances with many leading orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Orquestra Sinfônica Brasileira, the Munich Philharmonic, the Bayerische Rundfunk Orchester, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Tonhalle Orchester Zurich, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic, the São Paulo State Symphony, the Israel Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Paris, the Orchestre National de France, the Philharmonique de Radio France, the Orchestre de Monte Carlo and the leading orchestras of Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Montreal, New York and Philadelphia.

In Warsaw in 1999, he scored a genuine triumph with his interpretation of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2, marking the 150th anniversary of the composer's death. In December 2001, he chaired the jury for the Marguerite Long Competition in Paris.

He has recently given performances at New York's Carnegie Hall, with the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra in St. Petersburg, at the Prague Spring, with the Orchestre National de France and leading orchestras in Baltimore, Boston, Montreal, New York and Utah. He has appeared with the English Chamber Orchestra (in France and Portugal) and the Orchestre de la Radio Suisse Italienne, and given recitals in Brussels, Paris, Rome, Munich, Lisbon, Luxembourg and Zurich. In 2002/2003 he made two concert tours under the direction of Riccardo Chailly, with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam and the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi. He also appeared with the Tonhalle Orchester Zurich and the NHK Symphony Orchestra of Tokyo, and regularly fulfils engagements in his native Brazil.

Nelson Freire has recorded for Sony/CBS, Teldec, Philips and Deutsche Grammophon. He has recorded Liszt's piano concertos with the Dresden Philharmonic under Michel Plasson for Berlin Classics. Another performance, which was put onto a DVD, was a recording of four-hand and two-piano music with Martha Argerich playing, among others, the two-piano version of Ravel's La Valse.

His recording of the 24 Chopin preludes received an Edison Award.

Freire has recently signed an exclusive contract with Decca, the first result of which are recordings devoted to the works of Chopin, which have been greeted with critical acclaim, receiving the Diapason d’Or, a "Choc" award from Monde de la Musique, as well as being rated a "10" by the Répertoire magazine and "recommended" by Classica. The recordings comprise, in two CDs, the 24 piano études and the 2nd and 3rd piano sonatas, as well as the Barcarolle op. 60. Subsequent Decca recordings include a 2-CD set of the Brahms piano concertos with the Gewandhaus Orchestra under Riccardo Chailly, which won the 2007 Classic FM and Gramophone awards in the Record of the Year and Concerto categories, and CDs devoted to Beethoven sonatas and Debussy, the latter including book one of the preludes.

He marked the 2011 bicentenary of the birth of Franz Liszt with a Decca CD entitled ''Harmonies du Soir''. That same year, he made a principled withdrawal from performing with the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra after it fired half its musicians.

See also

Great Pianists of the 20th Century

References

External links

Category:Brazilian classical pianists Category:Child classical musicians Category:1944 births Category:Living people Category:People from Rio de Janeiro (city) Category:Jurors of the International Chopin Competition

de:Nelson Freire fr:Nelson Freire it:Nelson Freire ja:ネルソン・フレイレ pl:Nelson Freire pt:Nelson Freire ru:Фрейре, Нельсон fi:Nelson Freire

bgcolour	#6495ED
name	Anselm Kiefer
birth date	March 08, 1945
nationality	German
field	Painting
awards	}}

Anselm Kiefer (born March 8, 1945) is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Joseph Beuys and Peter Dreher during the 1970s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac. The poems of Paul Celan have played a role in developing Kiefer's themes of German history and the horror of the Holocaust, as have the spiritual concepts of Kabbalah.

In his entire body of work, Kiefer argues with the past and addresses taboo and controversial issues from recent history. Themes from Nazi rule are particularly reflected in his work; for instance, the painting "Margarethe" (oil and straw on canvas) was inspired by Paul Celan's well-known poem "''Todesfuge''" ("''Death Fugue''").

His works are characterised by a dull/musty, nearly depressive, destructive style and are often done in large scale formats. In most of his works, the use of photography as an output surface is prevalent and earth and other raw materials of nature are often incorporated. It is also characteristic of his work to find signatures and/or names of people of historical importance, legendary figures or places particularly pregnant with history. All of these are encoded sigils through which Kiefer seeks to process the past; this has resulted in his work being linked with a style called "New Symbolism."

Kiefer has lived and worked in France since 1991.

Early life and career

Kiefer was born in Donaueschingen, Germany on March 8, 1945, just a few months before the end of World War II. In 1951 he moved to Ottersdorf and attended grammar school in Rastatt. In 1966 he abandoned his law and Romance language studies at University of Freiburg to study at art academies in Freiburg, Karlsruhe, and Düsseldorf. In Karlsruhe, he studied under Peter Dreher, an important realist and figurative painter.

Work

Photography

Kiefer began his career as a photographer with performances in which he mimicked the Nazi salute on various locations in France, Switzerland and Italy calling for Germans to remember and to acknowledge the loss to their culture through the mad xenophobia of the Third Reich. In 1969 at Galerie am Kaiserplatz, Karlsruhe, he presented his first single exhibition "Besetzungen (Occupations)" with a series of photographs about controversial political actions.

Painting and Sculpture

By 1970 while studying informally under Joseph Beuys at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, his stylistic leanings resembled Georg Baselitz' approach. He worked with glass, straw, wood and plant parts. The use of these materials meant that his art works became temporary and fragile, which Kiefer himself is well aware of. The fragility of his work contrasts with the stark subject matter in his paintings. This use of familiar materials to express ideas was influenced by Joseph Beuys' art practice, in which Beuys used fat and carpet felt. It is also typical of the Neo-Expressionist style.

After many years away, Kiefer returned in 1971 to live and work in Donaueschingen. In the following years he incorporated German mythology in particular, and in the following decade he argued with the Kabbalah. He went on expanded journeys throughout Europe, USA and the middle east, in which the latter two journeys further influenced his work. Besides paintings, Kiefer created sculptures, watercolors, woodcuts, and photographs.

A series of paintings Kiefer executed between 1980 and 1983 depict looming stone edifices, referencing famous examples of National Socialist architecture, particularly buildings designed by Albert Speer and Wilhelm Kreis. By the mid-1980s, Kiefer’s themes widened from a focus on Germany's role in civilization to the fate of art and culture in general. His work became more sculptural and involved not only national identity and collective memory, but also occult symbolism, theology and mysticism. The theme of all the work is the trauma experienced by entire societies, and the continual rebirth and renewal in life. During the 1980s his paintings became more physical, and featured unusual textures and materials.

Kiefer's paintings of the 1990s explore the universal myths of existence and meaning rather than those of national identity. From 1995 to 2001, he started a cycle of large paintings of the cosmos. He also started to turn to sculpture, though lead still remains his preferred medium.

In 2006, Kiefer’s exhibition, ''Velimir Chlebnikov'', was first shown in a small studio near Barjac in the South of France then moved to White Cube in London and finished in the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in rural Connecticut. The work consists of 30 large paintings—six-feet high and around 10-feet long—hanging on two banks of 15 on facing walls of an expressly constructed grooved steel building that mimics the studio in which it was originally created. The work refers to the eccentric theories of the Russian futurist philosopher/poet Velimir Chlebnikov, who invented his own "language of the future" which he called "Zaum", and postulated, among other things, that cataclysmic sea battles shift the course of history once every 317 years. In his paintings, Kiefer’s toy-like battleships—misshapen, battered, rusted and hanging by twisted wires—are cast about by paint and plaster waves. The work’s recurrent color notes are black and white and gray and rust, and their surfaces are rough and slathered with paint and plaster and mud and clay.

In 2009, Kiefer mounted two exhibitions at the White Cube gallery in London. A series of forest diptychs and triptychs enclosed in glass vitrines, many filled with dense Moroccan thorns, was entitled ''Karfunkelfee'', a term from German Romanticism stemming from a poem by the post-war Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann. In ''The Fertile Crescent'', Kiefer presented a group of epic paintings inspired initially by a trip to India fifteen years earlier where he first encountered rural brick factories. Over the past decade the photographs Kiefer took in India "reverberated" in his mind to suggest a vast array of cultural and historical references, reaching from the first human civilisation of Mesopotamia to the ruins of Germany in the aftermath of the Second World War, where he played as a small boy. "Anyone in search of a resonant meditation on the instability of built grandeur", wrote the historian Simon Schama in his catalogue essay, "would do well to look hard at Kiefer’s ''The Fertile Crescent''".

Books

From 1969 Kiefer also worked on book design. Early examples are typically worked-over photographs; his more recent books consist of sheets of lead layered with the artist's characteristic materials of paint, minerals, or dried plant matter. For example he assembled numerous lead books on steel shelves in libraries, as symbols of the stored, discarded knowledge of history. The book ''Rhine'' (1981) comprises a sequence of 25 woodcuts, that suggest a journey downstream along the banks of the Rhine. The river is central to Germany's geographical and historical development, acquiring an almost mythic significance in works such as Wagner's Ring of the Nibelungs. Scenes of the unspoiled river are interrupted by dark, swirling pages that represent the sinking of the battleship Bismark in 1945, during an Atlantic sortie codenamed Rhine Exercise.

Studios

In 1991 Kiefer departed his studio in a large converted brick factory in Buchen, and spent time traveling in Japan, Mexico and India. In 1992 he established himself in Barjac, France, where he transformed his 35-hectare studio compound ''La Ribaute'' into a Gesamtkunstwerk. A derelict silk factory, his studio is enormous and in many ways is a comment on industrialization. He has created there an extensive system of glass buildings, archives, installations, storerooms for materials and paintings, subterranean chambers and corridors.

Sophie Fiennes filmed Kiefer's studio complex in Barjac for her documentary study, ''Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow'' (2010), which recorded both the environment and the artist at work. One critic wrote of the film: "Building almost from the ground up in a derelict silk factory, Kiefer devised an artistic project extending over acres: miles of corridors, huge studio spaces with ambitious landscape paintings and sculptures that correspond to monumental constructions in the surrounding woodland, and serpentine excavated labyrinths with great earthy columns that resemble stalagmites or termite mounds. Nowhere is it clear where the finished product definitively stands; perhaps it is all work in progress, a monumental concept-art organism."

Around 2008, Kiefer left his studio complex at Barjac and moved to Paris. A fleet of 110 lorries transported his work to a warehouse on the Périphérique, outside Paris, that had once been the depository for the La Samaritaine department store. A journalist wrote of Kiefer's abandoned studio complex: "He left behind the great work of Barjac — the art and buildings. A caretaker looks after it. Uninhabited, it quietly waits for nature to take over, because, as we know, over our cities grass will grow."

Exhibitions

In 1969, Kiefer had his first solo exhibition, at Galerie am Kaiserplatz in Karlsruhe. Along with Georg Baselitz, he represented Germany at the Venice Biennale in 1980. Comprehensive solo exhibitions of Kiefer's work have been organized by the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (1984); Art Institute of Chicago (1987); Sezon Museum of Art in Tokyo (1993); Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin (1991); Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (1998); Fondation Beyeler in Basel (2001); the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (2005); the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (2006); the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (2007). He was also featured in the 1997 Venice Biennale with a one-man show held at the Museo Correr, concentrating on paintings and books. In 2007, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao presented an extensive survey of recent work and Kiefer was commissioned to create a huge site-specific installation of sculptures and paintings for the inaugural "Monumenta" at the Grand Palais, Paris. With the unveiling of a triptych - the mural ''Athanor'' and the two sculptures ''Danae'' and ''Hortus Conclusus'' - at the Louvre in 2007, Kiefer became the first living artist to create a permanent site-specific installation in the museum since Georges Braque in 1953. In 2009, he directed and designed the sets for ''Am Anfang (In the Beginning)'' by Jörg Widmann at the Opéra National de Paris.

Kiefer is represented by Yvon Lambert Gallery in Paris, Gagosian Gallery in New York, White Cube in London, and Thaddaeus Ropac in Vienna. Before moving to Gagosian, he showed with Marian Goodman Gallery, New York.

Recognition

In 1990 he was awarded a Wolf Prize. In 1999 the Japan Art Association awarded him the Praemium Imperiale for his lifetime achievements. In the explanatory statement it reads:

''"A complex critical engagement with history runs through Anselm Kiefer's work. His paintings as well as the sculptures of Georg Baselitz created an uproar at the 1980 Venice Biennale: the viewers had to decide whether the apparent Nazi motifs were meant ironically or whether the works were meant to convey actual fascist ideas. Kiefer worked with the conviction that art could heal a traumatized nation and a vexed, divided world. He created epic paintings on giant canvases that called up the history of German culture with the help of depictions of figures such as Richard Wagner or Goethe, thus continuing the historical tradition of painting as a medium of addressing the world. Only a few contemporary artists have such a pronounced sense of art's duty to engage the past and the ethical questions of the present, and are in the position to express the possibility of the absolution of guilt through human effort."''

In 2008, Anselm Kiefer was awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. Art historian Werner Spies said in his speech, that Kiefer is a passionate reader who takes impulses from literature for his work. In 2011 Kiefer was appointed to the chair of creativity in art at the Collège de France.

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1983 Hans-Thoma-Preis

1990 Wolf Prize

1990 Goslarer Kaiserring

1997 International Prize by the Jury of the 47. Biennale di Venezia

1999 Praemium Imperiale

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2005 Federal Cross of Merit First Class

2005 Austrian Decoration for Science and Art

2008 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade

2011 Berliner Bär (B.Z.-Kulturpreis)

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See also

Holocaust memorial landscapes in Germany

References

Biography, Criticism, Catalogues, Mongraphs

Danto, Arthur. in "Anselm Kiefer". ''Encounter and Reflections: Art in the Historical Present''. New York: Farrar Strauss Grioux, 1990.

Auping, Michael. ''Anselm Kiefer: Heaven and Earth'' catalogue for exhibition of the same name, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, 2005. Munich: Preston, 2005.

External links

Yvon Lambert: Anselm Kiefer

Gagosian Gallery: Anselm Kiefer

Kiefer takes us round his London White Cube show (BBC Collective)

Anselm Kiefer at the Art Gallery of Ontario (2010)

Anselm Kiefer at SFMOMA (2007)

Anselm Kiefer at the Royal Academy (2007)

Anselm Kiefer at The Hirshhorn Museum (2006)

Anselm Kiefer at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1999)

Anselm Kiefer at Fundación Proa (1998)

''Telegraph'' review (2007)

''Guardian'' review (2007)

''Guardian'' review (2005)

Artnet review (2002)

Interview (2007)

Category:1945 births Category:Living people Category:People from Donaueschingen Category:Contemporary painters Category:German painters Category:Recipients of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade Category:Officers Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Category:Wolf Prize in Arts laureates Category:Kunstakademie Düsseldorf alumni

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