Bronzino: Renaissance Painter as Poet

Bronzino’s stature as one of the great painters of the Florentine Renaissance has long been recognized. By contrast, his literary achievements as a poet have been neglected. This is the first modern study to focus on the poetry of Bronzino. His work in two media places him in a distinguished group of artist-poets that includes Michelangelo, William Blake and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. In clarifying the meaning of Bronzino’s poems, Deborah Parker argues that they are considerable literary achievements. Importantly, she demonstrates that our understanding of Bronzino’s paintings is incomplete without careful attention to his creative work as a poet. Situating Bronzino’s achievements within a broader social and cultural context of mid-sixteenth century Florence, this study also contains numerous translations of Bronzino’s poetry.