Baccio del Bianco and the artistic fortuna of Galileo’s Il Saggiatore

This contribution takes into consideration Galileo’s Il Saggiatore as an overlooked source for the arts in Florence during the first part of the seventeenth century. I focus on the Florentine polymath Baccio del Bianco (1604-1657), an artist, engineer, architect, and caricaturist, whose interaction with Galileo was documented by the Florentine biographer Baldinucci. Baccio had also collaborated with Galileo’s friend, the architect and astronomer Giovanni Pieroni. My contribution especially highlights the confluence of artistic and natural philosophical perspectives in the cultural fortuna of Galileo’s treatise. The influence of Il Saggiatore on Baccio del Bianco’s work is exemplified by the decoration of the Camera della Notte e del Dì of Casa Buonarroti, designed in close dialogue with Michelangelo Buonarroti il Giovane. At a closer look, also Baccio’s caricatures are revealed as reflections on (human) nature endowed with the same authority as Galileo’s approach.