Selena, do you have a counter perspective on this, or is the illegal seizing and exporting of treasures a thing that FS did the moment he got the chance?
Honestly, I have no idea. I don't recall it from the MT and Joseph biographies that I've read, but then it's not something important to either of their lives, so their biographers would have no need to mention it. I really should get around to that FS biography his German wiki entry mentions anyway. And/or to a Leopold biography since you want me to read one anyway, because without having any date to back this up, my instinct is to point out that Leopold, who actually lived in Tuscany most of the time for decades before becoming Emperor, would have had far more opportunity and motive to select art treasury to take with him to Vienna than FS, who didn't live in Tuscany and thus would have to rely on minions to make a good selection. (For a given value of "good".) One possible source to look at would be the catalogue of the various art and treasury collections in the various palaces (Schönbrunn, or the one in Innsbruck which was also a former Lorraine owned seat and FS' favourite) which these days usually lit the provenience (i.e. where a given painting came from, and when).
I could see arguments either way, especially considering the common attitude for non Italian aristocrats visiting Italy in the 18th century was "cheap Italian art to be had! Yay!" (see also Wilhelmine writing to Fritz that she'd send him so many more things if it weren't for the cost of transport, because you could get the most amazing things for a bread and butter, and of course Sir William Hamilton taking a lot of antiquities to Britain over the decades), and FS when becoming Duke of Tuscany was also just newly married to MT, heiress of the Empire (with A LOT of debts as she'd find out), had to trade away his own duchy and yet would end up a very wealthy man indeed. Yes, most of that money came from manufacturing and great investments, but he had to get a starting capital somewhere. And he did like art (and jewelry).
Otoh: Florence does still have most of those Medici treasures for tourists to admire. If FS' Lorraine minions grabbed what they could get once Gian Gastone kicked it, when were they restituted, and why? Because that usually only happens if the grabber later loses a war. (See also, Napoleon, where only a part from all the art he freely helped himself to in both Italy and Germany was restituted, while some remains in the Louvre to this day. But some was indeed brought back. Jacob Grimm of fairy tale fame as a young man had among other things the job to track down the art from Hessen Kassel and see it was transported back there, for example. He got ca. 350 of ca 900 items.) And by the time Italy got sort of, kinda, independent, it still wasn't in a position to demand art from Vienna. The first heavyweight who could have done it when Austria was down and he was up was Mussolini, and he was more into styling himself as the heir of the Romans.
But like I said: all of this is speculation, and right now, I can only offer guesswork.
Re: Medici digression
Honestly, I have no idea. I don't recall it from the MT and Joseph biographies that I've read, but then it's not something important to either of their lives, so their biographers would have no need to mention it. I really should get around to that FS biography his German wiki entry mentions anyway. And/or to a Leopold biography since you want me to read one anyway, because without having any date to back this up, my instinct is to point out that Leopold, who actually lived in Tuscany most of the time for decades before becoming Emperor, would have had far more opportunity and motive to select art treasury to take with him to Vienna than FS, who didn't live in Tuscany and thus would have to rely on minions to make a good selection. (For a given value of "good".) One possible source to look at would be the catalogue of the various art and treasury collections in the various palaces (Schönbrunn, or the one in Innsbruck which was also a former Lorraine owned seat and FS' favourite) which these days usually lit the provenience (i.e. where a given painting came from, and when).
I could see arguments either way, especially considering the common attitude for non Italian aristocrats visiting Italy in the 18th century was "cheap Italian art to be had! Yay!" (see also Wilhelmine writing to Fritz that she'd send him so many more things if it weren't for the cost of transport, because you could get the most amazing things for a bread and butter, and of course Sir William Hamilton taking a lot of antiquities to Britain over the decades), and FS when becoming Duke of Tuscany was also just newly married to MT, heiress of the Empire (with A LOT of debts as she'd find out), had to trade away his own duchy and yet would end up a very wealthy man indeed. Yes, most of that money came from manufacturing and great investments, but he had to get a starting capital somewhere. And he did like art (and jewelry).
Otoh: Florence does still have most of those Medici treasures for tourists to admire. If FS' Lorraine minions grabbed what they could get once Gian Gastone kicked it, when were they restituted, and why? Because that usually only happens if the grabber later loses a war. (See also, Napoleon, where only a part from all the art he freely helped himself to in both Italy and Germany was restituted, while some remains in the Louvre to this day. But some was indeed brought back. Jacob Grimm of fairy tale fame as a young man had among other things the job to track down the art from Hessen Kassel and see it was transported back there, for example. He got ca. 350 of ca 900 items.) And by the time Italy got sort of, kinda, independent, it still wasn't in a position to demand art from Vienna. The first heavyweight who could have done it when Austria was down and he was up was Mussolini, and he was more into styling himself as the heir of the Romans.
But like I said: all of this is speculation, and right now, I can only offer guesswork.