Abstract

Pontormo's journal, written between 1554 and 1556 while working at the choir of the Florentine Basilica of San Lorenzo, bears witness to an intellectual vision steeped in the foundations of modern science and the spirit of the Reformation, as well as to the artist's esthetical and political choices. Pontormo's entries reflect the specific design of achieving the optimal physical condition that might enable the completion of a work of exceptional importance. The necessity of adopting a lifestyle and a dietary regimen predicated upon medical prescriptions is inextricably associated with the realization of a radically innovative cycle of frescoes which, in turn, harmonized with the most advanced literary and philosophical expressions of the time.