Abate Filippo Baldinucci

Abate Filippo Baldinucci , 1624-96, Italian art historian and philologist. Baldinucci was a pioneer in research techniques and among the first to emphasize the aesthetic importance of the print. An artistic adviser to the Medici court, he also wrote the first dictionary of art terminology. His three-volume lives of the artists from Cimabue to the 17th-century masters remains a valuable historical source.

Baldinucci, Filippo (1625–96). Florentine writer, collector, and amateur artist. His Notizie de' professori del disegno (6 vols., 1681–1728) contains lives of artists from Cimabue to his own time and is particularly valuable for the information it gives about 16th-century Florentine artists and Baldinucci's contemporaries. He was an innovator as an art historian in making use of every kind of document. Apart from the Notizie, his most important work is his biography of Bernini (1682), the primary source for the artist's life. He also wrote a history of engraving (1686), which contains one of the earliest accounts of Rembrandt's life.

Baldinucci, Filippo (b Florence, 3 June 1625; d Florence, 1 Jan. 1696). Italian writer, collector, and amateur artist. His major work is Notizie de' professori del disegno (6 vols., 1681–1728; the last published posthumously), an encyclopedic collection of artists' biographies from Cimabue to his own time. It constitutes a kind of updating and expansion of Vasari's Lives and is particularly valuable for the information it gives about 16th-century Florentine artists and Baldinucci's contemporaries. He was an innovator as an art historian in making use of every kind of document. Apart from the Notizie, his most important work is his biography of Bernini (1682), the primary source for the artist's life. He wrote several other books, including a history of engraving and etching (1686), which contains one of the earliest accounts of Rembrandt's life (his information was supplied by Bernhard Keil, a former pupil of Rembrandt).