Portrait: "giovan Carlo De' Medici", Italy 17th Century

Portrait: "Giovan Carlo de' Medici", Italy 17th century Old oil painting on canvas depicting the "Portrait of Cardinal Giovan Carlo de' Medici". Small lack of color on the canvas, and old restorations present. Period: 17th century Provenance: Italy Antique frame Replaced frame, and reintel. Dimensions: canvas 48x63.5cm - frame 58x73cm Cardinal Giovan Carlo played the cheerful card. He was the center of elegant life and little concerned with serious matters. Son of Cosimo II, he was raised in court splendor alongside his four brothers, including the future Grand Duke Ferdinand II. He was a gallant suitor of women, historical news and iconography depict him in good physical health. He had brilliance, wit and a pronounced aesthetic taste that led him to take an interest in art and artists, and it is to him that we owe the birth of art collections today. now kept in the Uffizi and the Galleria Palatina. Giovan Carlo, who was also responsible for state finances, bought in 1657 an old tiratoio dell'Arte della Lana, known as Pergola, on which he had the architect Ferdinando Tacca build a new theatre, whose plan was completely different from the classic semi-circle: the "Teatro all'Italiana". Equipped with numerous acoustic "toilets" and a large stage with a canopy at the back to better hear the "recitar cantando", it marked the beginning of modern theater for melodrama and was taken as an example, becoming the model for base from which all theaters in Europe were subsequently built. He devoted himself above all to the pleasures of the world, from gambling to joking, and even on the eve of his death, it is said that, in the cardinal's room, the usual brigade of friends played merrily at cards.