Agnolo di Cosimo, better known as Bronzino, was not only one of the most celebrated painters at the court of Cosimo I in Florence; he was also a dazzling poet, as Vasari reminds us in his Vite. Bronzino was the author of a Petrarchan canzoniere, as well as of burlesque poems. In his sonetti caudati, and in his paradoxical capitoli, burlesque language—characterized by its erotic puns and double meanings—interacts with the pictorial field in a strikingly original way. This interaction hinges on Bronzino’s employment of pictorial discourse: from simple, well-known burlesque symbols and metaphors—the paint brush, colours, bells, or the shapes of mosquitoes, carrots, and cheese—to the subtler use of burlesque topoi to face more serious and complex aesthetic issues. Agnolo Di Cosimo, plus connu sous le nom de Bronzino, fut non seulement l’un des peintres les plus célébrés à la cour de Côme Ier de Florence, mais aussi un poète éblouissant, comme le rappelle Vasari dans ses Vies. Bronzino est l’auteur d’un chansonnier pétrarquiste, ainsi que de poésie burlesque. Dans ses « sonetti caudati », et dans ses paradoxaux « capitoli », le langage burlesque — caractérisé par des jeux de mots érotiques et des jeux de doubles ententes — interagit avec la dimension picturale de manière remarquablement originale. Cette interaction repose sur l’emploi que fait Bronzino du discours pictural, depuis les symboles et les métaphores les plus simples et fréquents du vocabulaire burlesque — tels que les pinceaux, les couleurs, les cloches, les dessins de moustiques, carottes ou fromages — jusqu’au travail, plus subtil, de topoi burlesques, lequel engage des enjeux esthétiques plus sérieux et complexes.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Chiummo, C., (2025), "Burlesque Connotations in the Pictorial Language in Bronzino’s Poetry", HSSCommons: (DOI: )

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1. Renaissance and Reformation

Original publication: Chiummo, Carla. "Burlesque Connotations in the Pictorial Language in Bronzino’s Poetry." Renaissance and Reformation 40 (1): 2017. 211-238. DOI: 10.33137/rr.v40i1.28454. This material has been re-published in an unmodified form on the Canadian HSS Commons with the permission of Iter Canada / Renaissance and Reformation. Copyright © the author(s). Their work is distributed by Renaissance and Reformation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. For details, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.