Costantino or Costantini de' Servi (1554–1622) was an Italian painter, sculptor, garden designer and architect in the Renaissance.Caterina Pagnini, Costantino de' Servi: Architetto-scenografo fiorentino alla corte d'Inghilterra (Società editrice fiorentina, 2006).
Early life Born in 1554, de' Servi was the son of a diplomat.
Career
Primarily a sculptor and Medicean architect, de' Servi was also a painter and had some training in the workshop of Santi di Tito. A surviving painting, Virgin and Child was shown at the Cleveland Museum of Art. A round tondo on panel, the painting was completed around 1599. It was gifted to Cleveland Museum by Mr. and Mrs. Preston H. Saunders in 1971 and sold in 2011.Amica Library contribution to AAUCostantino dei Servi: Dorotheum
A portrait of Costantino de' Servi was engraved by Lucas Kilian in 1606.Simone Bardazzi e Guido Carrai, "Costantino de' Servi, architetto e informatore mediceo, alla corte di Rodolfo", in Studia Rudolphina, 21–22 (2022), p. 100. Bildnis des Costantinvs de Servi: Digitaler Portrait Index
He travelled constantly, in 1609 to obtain jasper and lapis lazuli stones for the Ducal Opificio delle pietre dure in Florence,Sergio Bertelli and R. Burr Litchfield, The King's Body: Sacred Rituals of Power in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (University of Pennsylvania, 2001), p. 228. and he worked at the court of James I in London, for Rudolph II in Prague,Simone Bardazzi e Guido Carrai, "Costantino de' Servi, architetto e informatore mediceo, alla corte di Rodolfo", in Studia Rudolphina, 21–22 (2022), p. 97 in Persia,Davide Trentacoste, Shahs and Grand Dukes: Medici-Safavid Diplomatic Relations in the Early Modern Mediterranean (Routledge, 2026). and at the Schloss Weimar.Davide Martino, "The 1618 Reconstruction Plan of the Weimar Residenzschloss by Costantino de' Servi", Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 83. Bd., H. 2 (2020), pp. 213–235.
Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales Costantino de' Servi made a detailed design for an Italianate garden at Richmond Palace, London, for the teenage Henry, Prince of Wales.Susan Doran, From Tudor to Stuart: The Regime Change from Elizabeth I to James I (Oxford University Press, 2024), pp. 203–204.Paula Henderson, 'Gardens', Erin Griffey, Early Modern Court Culture (Routledge, 2022), p. 166. The Prince had requested the services of a Florentine engineer, trained by Tommaso and Alessandro Francini in hydraulics, and de Servi arrived in London in May 1611.John Cloake, Palaces and Parks of Richmond and Kew: The palaces of Shene and Richmond (Phillimore, 1995), p. 183. However, de' Servi is not known to have practiced hydraulic engineering with Tommaso Francini. When he arrived in London, he gained an audience with Anne of Denmark and offered to paint her portrait and the portrait of Jane Drummond, a leading courtier.Timothy Wilks, '"Forbear the Heat and Haste of Building": Rivalries among the Designers at Prince Henry's Court', The Court Historian, 6:1 (May, 2001), pp. 52, 60.
De' Servi planned an oval arena for events and a giant statue of Neptune for the gardens in the area between Richmond Palace and the River Thames.Catharine MacLeod, The Lost Prince: The life & death of Henry Stuart (London: National Portrait Gallery, 2012), pp. 182–183. His drawing for the Richmond garden survives in Florence at the Archivio di Stato di Firenze and was rediscovered by the historian Sabine Eiche. She noticed the scale provided was in English feet.Sabine Eiche, "Prince Henry's Richmond: The Project of Costantino de' Servi", Apollo (November 1998), pp. 10–14.
Some works for the water features and river bank at Richmond were commenced by Inigo Jones and Salomon de Caus and incorporated in de' Servi's proposals. Henry's death in 1612 from typhoid ended the project.Luke Morgan, "After Pratolino: Costantino de' Servi and the Italian Renaissance Garden in England", In G. Hartoonian, & J. Ting (eds.), Proceedings of the 34th Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, 34 (2017) pp. 459–469.Luke Morgan, "Garden Design and Experience in Tudor England", R. Malcolm Smuts, The Oxford Handbook of the Age of Shakespeare (Oxford, 2016), pp. 692–694.Luke Morgan, Nature as Model: Salomon de Caus and Early Seventeenth-Century Landscape Design (University of Pennsylvania, 2007), pp. 56–58.
At that politically sensitive time, de' Servi had stepped in as matchmaker, providing a likeness of Caterina, whom the Medicis wanted the Prince to marry, but would not supply her portrait.Davide Martino, "The 1618 Reconstruction Plan of the Weimar Residenzschloss by Costantino de' Servi", Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 83. Bd., H. 2 (2020), p. 232 fn.35.
Masques at the English court Like many of his contemporaries, de' Servi also designed masques for the Stuart court.Roy Strong, Henry Prince of Wales and England's Lost Renaissance (London: Pimlico, 2000), pp. 73–5.Caterina Pagnini, "The Spectacle of Power: Diplomatic Mediation, Patronage and Cultural Exchanges between the Court of the Medici and the England of James I Stuart", Drammaturgia He used drawings for costumes and scenery made for the masques of the Medici court as an inspiration for entertainments produced by Prince Henry.James M. Saslow, The Medici Wedding of 1589: Florentine Festival as Theatrum Mundi (Yale, 1996), p. 185. His design for a stage cloud for The Somerset Masque by Thomas Campion, performed on 26 December 1613 at Whitehall Palace, was a disappointment as the rope and pulleys were visible and it was noisy in operation. Some observers thought it sounded like the portcullis of a castle.John Orrell, "The Agent of Savoy at The Somerset Masque", Review of English Studies, 28:111 (1977), pp. 301, 304: John Orrell, "The London Stage in the Florentine Correspondence", Theatre Research, 3 (1978), pp. 157–176. According to Giovanni Battista Gabaleoni, a diplomat from Savoy, the ropes were visible and the noise was like that made when ship's masts are raised or lowered.Barbara Ravelhofer, The Early Stuart Masque: Dance, Costume, and Music (Oxford, 2006), pp. 1, 161.
Antimo Galli, an Italian poet attached to Florentine embassy, who had published a poem describing such masquing courtiers as Jane Drummond,John Orrell, 'Antimo Galli's Description of "The Masque of Beauty"', Huntington Library Quarterly, 43:1 (Winter, 1979), pp. 13-23. sent an unfavourable review of The Somerset Masque or Masque of Squires to Florence. He wrote that de' Servi's "perspectives" would gain him little honour, and the Italian designer had been hunted or "chased from the court with sticks".Timothy Wilks, '"Forbear the Heat and Haste of Building": Rivalries among the Designers at Prince Henry's Court', The Court Historian, 6:1 (May, 2001), p. 61.
Thomas Campion published the masque in 1614, as The Description of a Masque, Presented in the Banqueting Roome at Whitehall, on St Stephens Night Last: At the Mariage of the Right Honourable the Earle of Somerset, & the Right Noble the Lady Frances Howard. He included criticism of de' Servi, as a difficult and secretive collaborator, "the workmanship whereof was undertaken by M. Constantine, an Italian, Architect to our late Prince Henry: but he being too much of himselfe, and no way to be drawne to impart his intentions, fayled so farre in the assurance he gave, that the mayne invention even at the last cast, was of force drawne into a farre narrower compasse then was from the beginning intended".Barbara Ravelhofer, The Early Stuart Masque: Dance, Costume, and Music (Oxford, 2006), p. 1: Thomas Campion (1614), EEBO University of Michigan Library
Spy More recent research conducted by Davide Martino, a history student at St John's College at Cambridge, suggests that Costantino de' Servi might have actually been a spy employed by the powerful Medici family of Florence. The thesis is based on the fact that the artist traveled constantly for work, was constantly by the Medici, and completed few projects. Only a spare few samples of his completed work survive today. There are also no portraits of him.
Retirement The architect ended up quietly, back in Italy, wealthy, in a grand house and garden of his own design.,Maev Kennedy, "The pretend gardener" article in The Guardian December 27, 2016 dying in 1622, aged 68.
References
External links Thomas Campion, The description of a maske: Presented in the Banqueting roome at Whitehall ... London, 1614