| Summary: | <p>This dissertation focuses on a period in Florentine art, beginning in the last years of Giambologna's life and ending with the demise of the Medici Grand Duchy, that is often brushed aside due to its perceived imitative practices and supposed lack of artistic innovation. In the grand narrative of Florentine art, Giambologna is considered to be an innovator while his artistic descendants were seen as mere copyists. While he produced inventive designs, they, in his shadow, were simply remaking objects that are now identified in museum catalogues and auction houses as "after Giambologna." My project evolves from a simple question: why did replicative practices flourish under the late Medici Grand Dukes?</p>
<p>I answer it by investigating how central the Medici's control of the means of production–which included the artist himself–was to the processes of production as well as reproduction of works of art in the seventeenth century. By combining the stories of individual artists with an explication of the court structure, I expose how the court encouraged and rewarded forms of technical and material innovation that were made possible through replication.
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