Stefano Bonsignori

Stefano Bonsignori, or also Buonsignori, was an Italian cartographer.

Olivetano had news of him since December 31, 1575 when, in a letter sent to the general of his Congregation, Grand Duke Francis I de Medici asked that "Don Stefano Buonsignori Florentine very instructed" could enter his service as a cosmographer. The sovereign intended to entrust him with completing the cycle of maps for the Room of the Guardaroba in the Old Palace, which was unfinished after the dismissal of Egnazio Danti. On 22 January the general gave a favorable opinion and in that same year 1576 the Bonsignori assumed the post, becoming the cosmographer of the Grand Duke.

Old Palace cards, painted on the wardrobe closet counters, are fifty in all and these twenty-two are of Bonsignori. Six are portrayed in some European regions (Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Schiavonia, Greece), ten refer to the then known parts of Africa, two eastern territories (Scythia and Tartaria), four polar regions and one Magellan Strait; The latest map is 1586.

In the meantime, he had also made a plan of Florence taken by Monte Oliveto and distributed on nine sheets. It is a work of great prestige: given to the prints in 1584, it was republished, albeit with some variants, in 1594 and 1660; Also recent times have been reproduced (1898, 1924 and 1926).

Always in 1584 he edited two cards, one of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the other of Senese. The first is an improvement of the famous paper of Tuscany by Girolamo Bellarmati (1536), and it was official in character to be used in Theatrum by Abraham Ortelius since 1603. The latter is also a remake of Bellarmati, but it is poorer Topographic level; Giovanni Antonio Magini referred to it to create a map of the same region.

In 1589 he reproduced the same territories in two large frescoes in the Mathematics Room (now geographic maps) of the Uffizi Gallery.

In 1588 his role as a cosmographer of the Grand Ducal was confirmed by the successor of Francis I, Ferdinand I. He died the following year and was buried in the church of St. Michael Bertelde, officiated by his Congregation (the grave disappeared during the seventeenth-century reconstruction of the building ).
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