On the cost of Ferdinand I de’ Medici’s wedding spectacles and the limits of «magnificenza»

Abstract

The article examines the costs of the Medici theatrical performances in 1589. Their interpretation and classification in various invoices (stage design, costumes, music, lighting, etc.) is made possible thanks to the analysis of two budgets, preserved in the collection of documents of Sindaci, Soprassindaci e Ufficio delle Revisioni (Syndics, Superintentents and Office of Audits), an institution in charge of controlling and verifying state expenditure. This precise accounting documentation, compared with the extravagant and even exaggerated testimony of printed descriptions, as well as city chronicles and correspondence, make it possible to define two different kinds of expenditure, which are named and separated into fictive expenditures and real expenses. The former, made up of unrealistic and somewhat fantastical figures,conveys the image of a magnificent and liberal ruler who never spared any expense, while the latter paints a scrupulous and cautious picture of the material mechanism of production, in which every list of expenses was subject to negotiation and justification, applying various saving strategies, from recycling materials to choosing the most cost-effective ones. Finally, the exploration of the concrete limits of courtly magnificence provides an un unprecedent picture of it.