Lettering the Might : Remarks on the Palaeography of the Inscriptions on the Fifteenth-century Medici Tombs in the Basilica of S. Lorenzo

Abstract

This article examines the palaeography of the fifteenth-century funeral inscriptions of the Medici in S. Lorenzo, Florence in their material and historical context. The oldest monument, the sarcophagus of Giovanni di Bicci and Piccarda di Edoardo, from the 1430s, just as Cosimo the Elder's monument (c. 1468) are characterised by the expected traditional Florentine lettering without serifs but with increasingly classicising elements of presentation, as yet untouched by the antiquarian innovations of 1450-1460s Northern Italy, which restored the fully geometric classical monumental capitals as well as adopted the classical abbreviations and ancient formulae. As late as the early 1470s the Medici inscriptions maintained the early Renaissance Florentine epigraphical style.