Przemiany Boscolego
The Metamorphoses of Boscoli

Summary/Abstract: Andrea Boscoli (1564–1606), born in Florence, was the student of Santi di Tito and Buontalenti. Unappreciated in his home town he began seeking good fortune (and commissions) outside its walls, working for the Church and prosperous patrons in Tuscany, Marche, and Liguria. The characteristic features of his frescoes, painted in early spring or autumn, were watered-down dark colours and the great expression of depicted figures. Probably in 1591 Boscoli accepted a commission for decorating a villa belonging to Pietro dela Seta in Corliano, near Pisa, which he embellished with grotesques, portraits of founders, and vedute. In the ballroom, however, Boscoli executed his opus magnum – a Mannerist fresco: ‘Il Convivio degli dei’. Inspired by Plato’s ‘Symposium’ and Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’ the fresco is a multi-level treatise on astrology and a study about melancholy; primarily, it is the author’s self-portrait, an unequalled depiction of the status of the artist in an epoch of great revolutions (in science, religion, and art), a perfect rendition of the fears, hopes, and anxieties of the end of the sixteenth century. ‘The Metamorphoses of Boscoli’ is an attempt at capturing the phenomenon of this monumental artwork.

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