Visitart n1 eng by VisitArt Firenze

VisitArt n.1

aprilseptember 2010

8,00 euro

a half-yearly magazine on the arts

florence

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EVENTS TAKE TIME EVENTS TAKE PLACE EVENTS TAKE SPACE

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Installation by Maurizio Nannucci

enclosed

map of the city showing all places listed

editorial

t is not easy for me to describe VisitArt. Manola, my collaborator over many years, knows this well, and as she reads through the first proof of my laconic introduction, she kindly but firmly suggests that I be “a little more emotional” in presenting my new project publicly for the first time, a project, she reminds me, that owes so much to the love I have for my city and my work. Well, although I’m not quite sure that impatience didn’t play as big a role in creating VisitArt as did my love for Florence, Manola is altogether right: there’s an undeniable emotional driving force at work here, mostly deriving from my urge to prove wrong the many – be they locals or outsiders- who, for so many years, I have heard lament that in Florence “nothing happens”. Well, in Florence things actually do happen. If anything, things happen too much. Although I’m still convinced that in spite of its long standing “international popularity”, Florence stubbornly remains a city “rounded” on itself, I don’t believe the immobility of the world of the arts – public or private – to be the city’s greatest problem; rather, its incapacity to communicate well and in unison its many smaller, excellent achievements. Therefore, VisitArt will try to do exactly this: collect as thoroughly as possible and publish the news, the discoveries, the present and future activities such as exhibitions, restorations, publications, conferences, events, performances and everything else that is related to the arts, and spread this information as widely as possible. For, contrary to what one may believe, the city moves in ways unacknowledged by its sceptical inhabitants, and one of our greatest ambitions is to overcome this. VisitArt is a simple project: a large format that stands out, a bilingual edition marking the city’s international role, a container of information registering the city’s movement, but also a project that cannot be complete and completely useful without the collaboration of everybody who is a part of it, a call for unison, at last. The wish to collect, edit and distribute information, leaving a physical trace, is the family disease I’ve inherited from my parents, Alessandra and Ferruccio Marchi, founders of Centro Di, and to use paper as a means – the beloved but agonizing tool of the trade – may seem obsolete, but it has at least one purpose: that the visual memory is not lost. VisitArt is a work in progess, independent but in need of all the collaboration it can get. As I flip through the last proofs, I already see the improvements that can and will be made in the next issues. And thanks too to all those who suggest them. Until then, I wish to thank Cristina Acidini who believed in this project from the outset, and who now accompanies me in presenting the “baby”, with sentiments that make me feel honoured. I hope I will live up to them. I thank Marco Bassilichi, my old school friend, who I lost sight of and met again years later and who has helped support VisitArt’s birth; and I thank all the other friends for what they have been able to give at different times and in different ways. But, above everybody else, I thank my formidabile team at Centro Di: Manola Miniati, Clara Gambaro, Patrizia Fabbri, Alberto Bartolomeo, Paolo Baioni, Silvia Cangioli, Alyson Price, excellent professionals and friends, VisitArt wouldn’t have been without you. Have courage, this is just the beginnning.

Ginevra Marchi Firenze, 8 March 2010 am very pleased indeed to welcome the appearance of a magazine about art in Florence. VisitArt comes from the well-established and prestigious publishing house of Centro Di, founded by Alessandra and Ferruccio Marchi and now directed by Ginevra Marchi. Centro Di has a supremely qualified, amicable and farsighted familiarity with the world of museums and art-historical studies, so that my welcome and that of all those responsible for Florentine museums can only be one full of warmth and keen anticipation. So where did the desire come from to create such a demanding and special ‘magazine’? I will allow myself the liberty of responding in terms that are platonic, but always current as far as Florence is concerned: from love. Not so much out of that rather superficial, dutiful love that anyone born in the Bel Paese develops, or should develop, for our artistic heritage and today’s art, but more out of the love that Plato describes in the Symposium: a love that is the child of Resource and Poverty, harsh and forceful, always needy, never sated, always searching. A love that does not stop at observing the loved object but besieges it and animates it. Perhaps everywhere – but certainly in Florence – good things happen by taking initiatives that are also responses, reactions or intelligent mischief. And isn’t this magazine, so astonishing in the wealth of permanent exhibitions and temporary events which it collects, indicates and values from the musuems and places of art in the city, a magnificent even Baroque - response to that common complaint that ‘nothing ever happens’, ‘no-one ever does anything’. Ginevra Marchi has put all her experience, imagination, and tenacity into this project which now sees publication, giving Florentines an incomparable tool with which to discover the quantity and variety of what is on offer, and to organise our time to immerse ourselves in culture. So, my heartfelt thanks go to Ginevra and to all those colleagues who responded to her call with generosity and skill, providing the ideas and information that have gone into building VisitArt. Built, day by day, like a complicated building to which everyone has contributed by bringing stones, bricks, and other ‘materials’, both authentic and of the highest quality, guaranteeing to this periodical that quality – ever more rare - of total credibility.

Cristina Acidini Soprintendente per il Patrimonio Storico Artistico ed Etnoantropologico e per il Polo Museale della Città di Firenze (Responsible for the Artisitic Heritage of the City of Florence).

he decision to support VisitArt confirms a sensitivity towards cultural projects that has always distinguished Bassilichi. It also emphasises our idea of a “socially responsible business” which is shown in a concrete contribution to the development of resources and the local area. Therefore, it is our duty to continue to invest, in general, in the Tuscan region and, in particular, in Florence, where Bassilichi was founded more than 50 years ago. To do this with the knowledge of the central role that the city can play in the national and international economy, thanks to the exploitation and promotion of its inestimable artistic patrimony. We salute Ginevra Marchi’s initiative with great enthusiasm. It confirms that Florence continues to be a place where ideas and innovative projects are forged, opportunely linking a prestigious past with the present and the future. We are certain that VisitArt will become a precious and useful tool for knowledge that will allow not only tourists to discover our city, but Florentines themselves.

Marco Bassilichi

Leonardo Bassilichi

Amministratore Delegato

Direttore Generale

Bassilichi SpA

half-yearly magazine on the arts in Florence created and directed by Ginevra Marchi

Visitart is published by Centro Di della Edifimi srl © All rights reserved Lungarno Serristori, 35 50125 Firenze (+39)0552342668/0552342666 www.centrodi.it cover price: 8,00 € Director Ginevra Marchi g.marchi@centrodi.it Editorial supervision Clara Gambaro claragambaro@visitartfirenze.com Editorial coordinator, design and layout Manola Miniati redazione@visitartfirenze.com Text editor and writer Patrizia Fabbri redazione@visitartfirenze.com Copy editor Alberto Bartolomeo alberto@centrodi.it English editing and “Foreigners in Florence” pages Alyson Price alison@visitartfirenze.com Translations Paula Boomsliter, Eve Leckey

Contributors to this issue Emilia Daniele “Architecture Walks”; Alberto Salvadori, Gabriele Ametrano “in the now”; Maria de Peverelli “Correspondence” Advertising Angelica Dalgas angelicadalgas@visitartfirenze.com

Subscriptions and distribution Silvia Cangioli silviacangioli@visitartfirenze.com

Interns Tea Pavanetto, Chiara Sestini Press office Catola&Partners www.catola.com

Photo credits Illustrations in this magazine are generally supplied directly by Museums. The Publisher, when notified, will add or correct in the next issue any copyright inadvertently omitted. For their “opinions” we thank James Bradburne, Maria de Peverelli For their valuable advice we thank Cristina Acidini, Carlo Ceccarelli, Carlo Sisi, John T. Spike, Neri Torrigiani, Lorenzo Villoresi ISSN 2037-4658 Waiting authorisation of the Tribunale di Firenze Printed by Petruzzi Stampa, Città di Castello, Italy, March 2010

1• april-september 2010 Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore The Uffizi The Bargello The Accademia

2 4 8 9

Palazzo Pitti

Opificio delle Pietre Dure and Restoration Laboratories

Libraries

Cenacoli and fresco cycles

San Marco Museum, Medici Chapels, Orsanmichele

Santa Croce Monumental Complex

Archaeological Museums

in the now

curated by Alberto Salvadori with Gabriele Ametrano

Civic Museums

Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi

Marino Marini Museum

Medici Villas

House Museums

“Correspondence” conversations on Florence with people from elsewhere

curated by Maria de Peverelli

Natural History and Anthropology Museums

20th-Century Collections

Galileo Museum

Stibbert Museum

Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Horne Museum

Casa Buonarroti

Academies and Foundations

Jewish Museum, Museum of Mathematics, Museo degli Innocenti

Museo Richard-Ginori, Certosa del Galluzzo, Museo Bandini, Football Museum

Foreigners in Florence

edited by Alyson Price

Children

Architecture Walks

edited by Emilia Daniele

Books about town BassmArt Gruppo Bassilichi Founded in Florence in 1957, the Gruppo Bassilichi has its principle bases in Florence and Siena, but it also has a significant presence in the rest of Italy. Bassilichi is today one of the major providers of technological services for banks, businesses and public administration. BassmArt, one of the group’s societies, demonstrates Bassilichi’s commitment to multimedia projects in both the cultural and leisure sectors. BassmArt’s activities cover various areas: electronic ticketing for museum, exhibition and event access; the development of video guides and CDs; and the delivery of tourist services through interactive and multilingual projects which allow consultation of maps and information with controlled access on the internet.

contents

VisitArt

edited by Arte&Libri

Notice to readers VisitArt is a biannual magazine, the calendar of events is current to the day of going to press. For up-dated information please refer to the websites of the various museums and, soon, to our own site www.visitartfirenze.com Note from the editor The editorial team welcomes any change, update or addition to upcoming issues, to arrive no later than 45 days before the publication date. Send to: redazione@visitartfirenze.com or VisitArt c/o Centro Di, Lungarno Serristori 35, 50125 Firenze VisitArt is available in newsagents (edicole), in bookstores, in museum bookshops and can be ordered direct from the publisher: edizioni@centrodi.it 0552342668 Subscription (two issues): Italy 18,00 € Abroad 30,00 € Issue n° 2 comes out on 15 September 2010

opera di santa maria del fiore

stablished at the end of the 13th century to oversee the construction of Florence’s new cathedral, the Opera di S. Maria del Fiore today administers a group of monuments and buildings of exceptional importance. These structures developed around the cathedral and are now important monuments for all visitors to the city. Though forming a coherent nucleus, the buildings consist of several groups, all with a marked identity and specific historic function. The buildings include churches, such as Santa Maria del Fiore and the Baptistery. A symbol of Florence since the Middle Ages, the latter came under the Fabbriceria del Duomo (Ecclesiastical Board) only in 1777, following the suppression of the Opera di San Giovanni. The remains of another church, deeply rooted in the city’s history, are also part of this group of buildings – the ancient cathedral of Santa Reparata re-discovered beneath the floor of the Duomo. Considerably less known is the little church of San Benedetto, also of medieval origin and also under the authority of the Opera di S. Maria del Fiore. The work of the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore in conserving and improving its works of art is evident in other structures, in particular in the Museum of the Opera del Duomo, established in 1891 to house the numerous masterpieces removed for safe keeping from S. Maria del Fiore and from the Baptistery. In addition, the stonemasons’ workshop, where the traditional skills of Florentine artisans created works of inestimable value in the past, continues to work on their conservation, while the newly renovated Museum of the Opera del Duomo opened in 1987.

Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore Via della Canonica, 1 office hours: Monday-Friday 8.00-19.00, Saturday 8.00-14.00

www.operaduomo.firenze.it

Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore

Santa Maria del Fiore, the design of which was planned by Arnolfo di Cambio, is now the world’s third largest church (after Saint Peter’s in Rome and Saint Paul’s in London). It is 153 metres long, 90 metres wide at the cross and 90 metres high from the floor to the opening of the lantern. It was dedicated in 1412 to Santa Maria del Fiore, clearly alluding to the lily, a symbol of the city. The considerable diversities of style seen in the present-day cathedral are evidence of the varying tastes that developed over the long period of time from its foundation to its completion. The first stone of the façade was laid on 8 September 1296, and the Cathedral was completed at the end of the 19th century when this façade, begun so many centuries earlier, was at last completed.

The Cupola

In 1418, the Opera del Duomo advertised a public contest for the dome of Florence cathedral. Although there were no official winners, Filippo Brunelleschi and Lorenzo Ghiberti were appointed master builders: on 7 August 1420 construction began on the cupola (the largest brick dome ever constructed); from 1425 onward construction continued under Brunelleschi’s direction alone, and was completed up to the base of the lantern on 1 August 1436.

Crypt of Santa Reparata (archaeological site)

A major excavation beneath the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, carried out between 1965 and 1973, brought to light the remains of the ancient basilica of Santa Reparata, the oldest evidence of early Christianity in Florence. Today, the ancient early Christian basilica of Florence lies just two and a half metres below the present-day cathedral. Restored on several occasions, it was also used for the meetings of the Parliament of the Republic before the construction of Palazzo Vecchio.

Giotto’s Campanile

Giotto’s bell tower is one of the four principal components of Piazza del Duomo. At a height of 84.70 metres and about 15 metres wide, it is the most eloquent example of 14th-century Florentine Gothic architecture. Faced with white, red and green marble like the cathedral, the majestic square bell tower, considered the most beautiful in Italy, was begun by Giotto in 1334.

open: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday 10.00-17.00, Saturday 10.00-16.45; 1 May 8.30-17.00 closed: on occasion for major holidays

Museum

Established in 1891, designed by Luigi del Moro, an architect of the “Opera”, renovated after the 1966 flood, and rearranged in December 1999, the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo is one of the most important ecclesiastical museums in Italy. Since the late 19th century, works of art have been removed from their outdoor location at Santa Maria del Fiore, the Baptistery and the Campanile in order to conserve them in the Museum. Piazza del Duomo, 9 open: Monday-Saturday 9.00-19.30, Sunday 9.00-13.45 closed: 1 January, Easter, 8 September, 25 December

Baptistery of San Giovanni

With an octagonal plan, entirely faced with white and green marble from Prato, the Baptistery is surmounted by a cupola with eight segments resting on the perimeter walls. These are masked from the outside by the walls which rise above the arches of the second floor and by a roof with a flattened pyramidal form. The Baptistery we see today was built over a smaller and earlier Baptistery dating from the 4th or 5th century.

The historic seat of the Opera di San Giovanni is a few steps away from the Baptistery. After years of neglect when the Opera di San Giovanni no longer played a significant role in the everyday life of the city centre, this building has now been restored to its original splendour. Thanks to the efforts and generous contribution of the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, this historic building is now a multipurpose centre, aptly named “Centro Arte e Cultura”, providing information and services for visitors to the cathedral complex and to the city centre in general. Inside the new centre there are 5 conference rooms designed to host meetings, lectures, educational activities and other cultural events. Piazza San Giovanni, 7 www.artecultura.firenze.it

Bottega The Workshop of the Opera del Duomo was originally located in premises behind the Cathedral’s apse. The definitive move to the present location in Via dello Studio took place around the mid-19th century.

Archivio dell’Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore

and collection of documents has in fact accompanied this prestigious institution throughout its history. The size of the Archive is significant: there are about 7,000 pieces, from large format codices to registers, folders and papers. The Archive also contains drawings, prints and photographs.

As well as the monuments and many masterpieces, the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore also looks after a priceless cultural treasure: the historic Archive. The production

Via della Canonica, 1 reading room open: Monday 14.00-18.00, Wednesday and Friday 9.00-13.00

Via dello Studio

events

O flos colende

Musica sacra a Firenze/Sacred Music in Florence XIV year artistic director Gabriele Giacomelli Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore Battistero di San Giovanni 24 march-7 september 2010 free entry calendar • Wednesday 24 March at 21.15 Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore The Mysteries of the Rosary in Music and Poetry Ugo Pagliai, narrating voice music by: H.I. Von Biber Musica Antiqua Roma Riccardo Minasi, violin Ludovico Minasi, violoncello Giulia Nuti, harpsichord and organ

• Monday 10 April at 21.15 Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore Concert at Mascioni’s Grand Organ Wayne Marshall music by: M.E. Bossi E. Liszt G. Rossini Ch.M. Widor

• Monday 10 May at 21.15 Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore Music of the Middle Ages for Saint Zanobi music by: Bartolo, Ghirardello E. Giovanni da Firenze F. Landini

Gregorian chants Ensemble San Felice Federico Bardazzi, director

• Friday 4 June at 21.15 Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in collaboration with the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Cherubini and Sacred Music in Florence music by: L. Cherubini M. da Cagliano N. Jommelli Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Piero Monti, director Andrea Secchi, organist

• Tuesday 7 September at 21.15 Baptistery of San Giovanni Sacred Arias from the Florentine Baroque music by: G.M. Casini M. da Cagliano C. Monteverdi P. Sanmartini Monica Bacelli, soprano Attilio Cremonesi, harpsichord and organ Loredana Gintoli, harp

Gli anni della Cupola 1417-1436 edited by Margaret Haines

opera di santa maria del fiore

Centro Arte e Cultura

Gli anni della Cupola is a digital archive constructed from the sources in the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore. The period covered, 1417-1436, corresponds to the twenty years in which Brunelleschi’s dome was designed and constructed.

From the President of the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore In 2010, the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore presents the next in its important series of musical events that began in 1977, the year of the celebrations for the 700th anniversary of the laying of the first stone of Florence’s cathedral. The series of performances of sacred music entitled O flos colende, the first words of the Gregorian antiphon for the revered Florentine bishop San Zanobi, is in its 14th year, and as always the programme is distinguished by an original selection of works to be played by excellent musicians. As on previous occasions, lovers of sacred music will find much to interest and satisfy them. First and foremost, the artists, some wellknown such as Ugo Pagliai, beloved by the Florentine and Tuscan public, who will be giving a cycle of evocative readings on the theme of the Passion and the figure of the Madonna, alternating with the music of the Baroque violinist Von Biber, music written as a comment on the Mysteries of the Rosary. Also of note are the performances of the young and very successful soprano Monica Bacelli, who will be interpreting splendid Florentine Baroque sacred arias composed by the choir masters and organists of Santa Maria del Fiore. The concert dedicated to Luigi Cherubini on the 250th anniversary of his birth renews a precious collaboration with the prestigious Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino which, under the able direction of Maestro Piero Monti will be performing glorious pieces by Cherubini, including the monumental Credo in 8 parts and for 2 choirs, and by other composers linked to the history of the Duomo choir. Another original and fascinating project is the reconstruction of the polyphonic and monodic medieval compositions linked to worship of San Zanobi, performed by the Florentine Ensemble San Felice under the direction of their founder, Federico Bardazzi. And finally, to emphasise the magnificence of the organs of the cathedral, the virtuoso Wayne Marshall, one of the world’s most highly acclaimed organists and orchestra conductors, in Italy in April 2010 to conduct the RAI Symphony Orchestra, will be giving us a taste of his bravura as interpreter on the organ made by the firm of Mascioni. Anna Mitrano

the uffizi

he Uffizi Gallery was created within a building which Cosimo I de’ Medici commissioned to house the judiciary of the city’s guilds beside his residence in Palazzo Vecchio. His heir, Francesco I, initiated a collection of portraits of famous men, both historic and contemporary, on the top floor during the 1580s and created the first nucleus of today’s museum in the octagonal Tribune, entered from the first corridor. Francesco housed the most precious and fabulous works of art and rarities of nature in the Tribune. The collection of scientific instruments and the Medici armoury were later displayed in neighbouring rooms. In the centuries that followed, the Medici and then the Lorraine continued to add collections of art, and these now constitute one of the most important museums in the world.

Foto Grazia Sgrilli

Piazzale degli Uffizi open: Tuesday to Sunday 8.15-18.50 closed: 1 January, 1 May, 25 December We advise visitors to make a reservation

www.polomuseale.firenze.it/uffizi

information from the museum

completed restoration among works being restored are:

Several sections of the Gallery are currently under construction. We apologise for any inconvenience caused to visitors.

• The Belvedere Venus (beginning of the 2nd century AD) While visiting the Gallery in 1677, Ercole Ferrata, a sculptor from Milan, identified a sculpture of Venus, until then entirely neglected. Some forty years earlier Ferrata had bought a plaster cast of the original statue from a gardener at the Vatican Belvedere. The plaster cast confirmed his intuition and the neglected Venus was recognized as one of the statutes

belonging to the oldest papal collection exhibited at the centre of what would become the Vatican Museums. The statue was in a pitiful state of repair which hindered its rediscovery and the work, despite its importance for the history of collecting in Florence, was rarely mentioned even in specialized studies. It can therefore be fairly claimed that, following the restoration of the work completed in recent months by Camilla Mancini, the Belvedere Venus has been discovered for a third time.

• Amico Aspertini, Portrait of Alessandro Achillini, before 1521 In this portrait Aspertini used an extremely versatile technique which allowed him to glide the brush over delicate areas, almost floating over the pale fluidity of the skin. This technique, used on a prepared canvas, is almost similar to fresco work, an effect which the artist wished to achieve and thus essential for the restorers (Anna Teresa Monti and Lisa Venerosi Pesciolini) to preserve, so as to maintain this particular texture and avoid making any additions to the painting. On its

calendar of exhibitions april-september 2010 La città degli Uffizi 3

Beato Angelico a Pontassieve. Dipinti e sculture del Rinascimento fiorentino

Laboratorio Novecento

Pontassieve, Palazzo Comunale, Sala delle Colonne Curated by Ada Labriola 28 February-27 June 2010

Reali Poste Curated by Federica Chezzi and Chiara Toti with Claudia Tognaccini, in conjunction with the Educational Department of the Cultural Heritage Authority April-May 2010 (postponed)

The third exhibition in the series “Città degli Uffizi” is housed in the Sala delle Colonne in the Palazzo Comunale at Pontassieve. Antonio Natali is the creator and director of this initiative which aims to highlight the artistic relationships that developed in the course of history between Florence and the surrounding region. On this occasion the focus of the exhibition, curated by Ada Labriola, is Beato Angelico, whose painting of the Virgin and Child, now in the Uffizi, was made for the church of San Michele Archangelo in Pontassieve. Other works by Beato Angelico are also on display, as well as a selection of paintings and sculptures by other leading Florentine artists of the period (Benozzo Gozzoli, Filippo Lippi, Paolo Uccello, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Nanni di Bartolo).

The exhibition and events related to Laboratorio Novecento are based on the theme of education for contemporary art and are organised by the Uffizi Gallery in conjunction with the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe (Prints and Drawings Department). An educational project, the exhibition presents a selection of works representing artistic movements of the later 20th century and the new millennium. All of the works belong to lesser known collections of the Uffizi and the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe. Workshop activities are free and are intended for school groups and families with children. Laboratorio Novecento aims to introduce the public to contemporary artistic techniques through practical work and games, offering a stimulating opportunity for self expression. Visits by appointment according to regulations posted on the website www.polomuseale.firenze.it. Sunday open to all.

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the uffizi

events

Alla maniera d’oggi. Base a Firenze. Otto artisti contemporanei in un percorso storico-museale

Maurizio Nannucci’s spectacular installation is affixed to the side of the Uffizi facing the Arno until April 2010. For further information, see the section “in the now”. Donation of a self-portrait by Robert Mapplethorpe

Maurizio Nannucci, All Art Has Been Contemporary, 2010, Installation. Florence, Uffizi. Photo by Carlo Cantini.

On the closure of the exhibition Mapplethorpe. The perfection of form (Accademia Gallery 26 May 2009-10 January 2010), the “Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation” donated a photographic Self-portrait by Robert Mapplethorpe dated 1980 to the Uffizi Gallery’s Collection of Artists’ Portraits. The Accademia Gallery will receive a Portrait of Von Hackendahl and a Portrait of Derrick Cross, both dated 1985. The three works were presented to the press on 22 March 2010 and will be exhibited for two weeks in the ‘Sala del Camino’ on the first floor of the Uffizi Gallery.

Presentation of restored masterpieces by Filippo Lippi Uffizi, Sala del Lippi Spring 2010

arrival, the original appearance of the painting had been altered. Repeated applications and gradually alternating damp, heat and controlled pressure, allowed the restorers to satisfactorily recover the stretch of the canvas and to position the painting squarely on a new sliding mount. In time, the system of creating tension regulated by the mount will probably eliminate the signs of deformation.

ongoing restoration

new publications

among works being restored are: • Paolo Uccello, La battaglia di San Romano, c. 1438

• Bollettino degli Uffizi 2008, edited by F. Chezzi, S. Nocentini, Firenze, Centro Di, 2009

• Filippo Lippi, Annunciazione con Sant’Antonio Abate e San Giovanni Battista, 1450-1460

• Il Teatro di Niobe: la rinascita agli Uffizi di una sala regia, edited by A. Natali, A. Romualdi, Firenze, Giunti, 2009 • E. Spalletti, La Galleria di Pietro Leopoldo: Gli Uffizi al tempo di Giuseppe Pelli Bencivenni, Firenze, Centro Di, in process of publication

This spring the magnificent altarpiece by Filippo Lippi, originally in the Novices’ Chapel in Santa Croce, the beautiful predella by Francesco Pesellino, the Annalena Annunciation and two balusters with the Annunciation and Saints John the Baptist and Antony of Padua will be exhibited in San Pier Scheraggio. Restoration of these works of art was financed by the “Friends of the Uffizi”. Opening of the “Sale degli Stranieri” Spring 2010 The first rooms of the “New Uffizi”, dedicated to paintings of 17th- and 18th-century foreign schools, opened in the late spring of 2010. On the first floor of the gallery the rooms overlook the courtyard of the “Reali Poste” and Chiasso dei Baroncelli, near to the Contini Bonacossi Collection. Access is via the stairs located at the end of the third corridor.

calendar of exhibitions april-september 2010 in the Gallery

Caravaggio e caravaggeschi a Firenze Galleria Palatina, Palazzo Pitti Galleria degli Uffizi Exhibition project by Gianni Papi Curators of the exhibition Stefano Casciu for the Galleria Palatina Antonio Natali for the Uffizi 22 May-10 October 2010 To celebrate the 4th centenary of the death of Caravaggio, in 2010, two of the principle state museums in Florence, the Uffizi and the Palatine Gallery, are hosting the exhibition Caravaggio e caravaggeschi a Firenze. Forty years after the pioneering exhibition curated by Evelina Borea, over one hundred paintings - some well-known and others less so are presented in the light of information which has emerged following recent research relating to both documents and attributions, influencing the opinions of art historians.

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the uffizi

The Vasari Corridor

A kilometre in length, the Corridor was built to link the offices of the Medici to Palazzo Pitti, at the time the private residence of the family. Today, 17th- and 18th-century paintings from the Uffizi, and a collection of artists’ self-portraits, are displayed here. The Corridor flanks the river Arno and crosses the Ponte Vecchio, continuing until it reaches Palazzo Pitti. Visits are possible only upon reservation, please refer to the website for more detailed information.

www.polomuseale.firenze.it/musei/vasariano

Sala delle Reali Poste

Located on the ground floor of the Uffizi, the Reali Poste was created during the period when Florence was the capital of Italy. Designed by the architect Mariano Falcini, it was built over the pre-existing Carriage Courtyard, and the name recalls the post office which was located there from 1866 until 1917. For several years now the Reali Poste has been used for temporary exhibitions organized or hosted by the Uffizi Gallery. Opening hours are the same as those of the exhibition in the Reali Poste.

The Contini Bonacossi Collection

The Alessandro Contini Bonacossi Collection is one of the most important 20th-century compendia of Italian art. A portion, bequeathed to the state in 1969 and earmarked for the Uffizi Gallery, consisting of about 50 works, is on exhibition in several specially arranged exhibition spaces located between Via Lambertesca and Chiasso Baroncelli. The works include items of furniture, ceramics, sculptures, and masterpieces of European painting from the 1300s to the 1700s (with paintings by Andrea del Castagno, Giovanni Bellini, Girolamo Savoldo, El Greco, and Zurbaran). Visits are possible only upon reservation, please refer to the website for more detailed information.

www.polomuseale.firenze.it/musei/continibonacossi pages edited by Valentina Conticelli.

calendar of exhibitions april-september 2010 abroad

abroad

China

Lubiana (Slovenia)

From the Collections of The Uffizi Gallery. The Genres of Painting: Landscape, Still Life and Portrait Paintings

Ragione e sentimento. Sguardi sull’Ottocento in Toscana

Shanghai (10 March-6 June 2010) Shenyang (19 June-19 September 2010) Guangzhou (2 October 2010-2 January 2011) Chengdu (15 January-17 April 2011) Pechino (2 May 2011-2 August 2011) Curated by Antonio Natali

This travelling exhibition organized by the Shanghai International Culture Association with the Uffizi, will take place in China in 5 different places. The exhibition consists of a selection of paintings (currently in storage at the Uffizi) dating from the 15th to the 20th century, with the addition of works housed in the Vasari Corridor. Based on previous editions of “I Mai Visti”, shows which presented little known landscape and still life paintings, the Chinese exhibition also includes a section dedicated to portraits and self-portraits of artists.

Narodna Galerija di Lubiana, with the Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Lubiana Curated by Carlo Sisi and Giovanna Giusti 2 June-22 August 2010 An anthology of self-portraits of artists – Benvenuti, Canova, Corot, Fattori, Boldini, Bocklin – who determined the development of painting in Tuscany in the 19th century, this exhibition was previously held at the Reali Poste, Uffizi, 2007, curated by Carlo Sisi and Giovanna Giusti. The show highlights the innovators of important aesthetic and critical events during the 1800s, a century which opened with the elegant style of Neo-classicism inspired by Rationalism, and closed with the evocative yet disquieting images of Symbolism.

in preparation La collezione degli autoritratti della Galleria degli Uffizi: 1664-2010 Tokyo (11 September-14 November 2010) Osaka (27 November 2010-20 February 2011)

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he prestigious collection of drawings and prints of the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi, began with the Medici family collections and in particular the works assembled by Leopoldo de’ Medici, brother of Grand Duke Ferdinando II, who became Cardinal in 1667. Leopoldo made use of numerous agents to purchase folios by the greatest Renaissance and Mannerist artists; the works were catalogued by Filippo Baldinucci, an amateur artist and, like Leopoldo, a collector. The Lorraine, who came to the throne of Tuscany in 1737 with the extinction of the Medici dynasty, enriched the collection, which was added to in the period following the constitution of the Kingdom of Italy thanks to a great many donations, among which are the 12,667 drawings donated by the sculptor Emilio Santarelli in 1866. Today, the collection contains over 150,000 works by Tuscan artists, artists of other Italian schools, and Flemish and Dutch, French, Spanish, and German artists. Although the collection was moved in 1687 from the private Palazzo Pitti residence to the Uffizi, it was not until the early 1900s that the works finally found their way to their current location in the rooms of the Medici Theatre, designed by Buontalenti.

Via della Ninna, 5 Opening hours follow those of the Uffizi. Access to the sala di studio is reserved to scholars, upon letter of presentation. open: Monday, Wednesday, Friday 8.30-13.30, Tuesday and Thursday 8.30-17.00

www.polomuseale.firenze.it/musei/disegni

Marzia Faietti Director of the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi

The following are four of the many restoration efforts now involving this Department.Three concern works selected for the exhibitions mentioned below; the fourth refers to one of the Department’s systematic restoration initiatives:

for an exhibition of the artist’s works. Restoration corrected the fragmentation and undulation which caused abrasions and loss of pigments; it also removed the old, heavy-handed pictorial retouching, replacing it with another, more balanced overlay in reversible materials.

• Agnolo di Cosimo Mariano di Tori (Bronzino), Resurrection of Christ, inv. 13843 F, a preparatory sketch for the painting of the same name at the Church of SS. Annunziata in Florence and currently on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of New York

• Federico Zuccari, Study of two demons, inv. 11045 F, preparatory sketch for the frescoes in the dome of Florence Cathedral, currently on exhibition at the show of the artist’s works at the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe.

restoration

the uffizi department of prints and drawings (gabinetto disegni e stampe)

The past on show Since 1950 the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe has organised over 100 exhibitions on both historic and more recent groups of prints and drawings in its collection, in particular concentrating on Florentine artists of the 16th and 17th century and Medici collections, but also on other Italian schools and themes in European art, on drawings linked to decoration and architetural drawing, and on antique and contemporary prints. Over the last two years there have been a number of international projects: an exhibition on studies by Florentine and Tuscan artists connected to Palazzo Vecchio in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York (2008); an exhibiton of Flemish and Dutch drawings went from Florence to the Fondation Lugt in Paris (2008); the exhibition on Guercino and his followers went from Florence to the Kunstmuseum in Berne (2009); a show of Bronzino drawings at the Metropolitan Museum in New York (2010); and, last, an exhibition on Italian drawing of the 15th century at the British Museum (2010) which will open in Florence in 2011 in an extended version, thanks to the Uffizi. The Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe also has a primary role as a lending institution to exhibitions and other initiatives throughout the world. Its continuous research into, and study of, the collections has been translated into numerous publications, such as those that accompany exhibitions and the recent initiative concentrating on prints, two volumes of which appeared in 2007 and 2009. In addition the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe promotes seminars, workshops and conferences, organised in particular with the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max Planck Institut and the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa.

Removal of the backing and the adhesive from the reverse side of the work eliminated the major causes of its deterioration; it was then reinforced using heat and applications of Japanese tissue. • Lorenzo Costa, Saint Cecilia before the Prefect Almachius, inv. 166 E, preparatory sketch for the fresco of the same title in the Oratorio di Santa Cecilia in Bologna. The drawing, one of the many on loan for the important exhibition organised in collaboration with London’s British Museum, had a number of problems, which have

been completely eliminated, and lacunae along the bottom margin which have been integrated with Japanese tissue.

• Livio Agresti, Circumcision, inv. 686 E-416 S. This large drawing consisting of various sheets backed by a canvas support, has now been made more satisfactorily legible by removal of the canvas and the old adhesive; a collateral benefit of this operation is the restored elasticity of the paper, which was consolidated using Japanese tissue.

calendar of exhibitions april-september 2010 at home

La donazione Fausto Melotti: la grafica 24 May-29 August 2010 The exhibition, one of a series designed to illustrate the occasions on which the collections have been substantially increased, introduces the donation to the Gabinetto of 132 graphic works by Fausto Melotti (1901-1986). This exhibition displays a selection of about 80 engravings and sketchbooks created (between 1969 and 1985) by this master from Trento. This is an eloquent example of the artist’s efforts to close the gap between the plastic arts and writing, and indeed the word, through a synthesis of linear and threedimensional signs, seen by many as one of the major motifs in all of Melotti’s work, in which graphic and sculptural expression develop one alongside the other.

abroad

The Drawings of Bronzino

Fra Angelico to Leonardo. Italian Renaissance Drawings

New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 20 January-18 April 2010 This exhibition of the drawings of Agnolo Bronzino (Florence, 1503-1572), a collaboration between the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York and the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi , presents, for the first time at a single site, a significant selection of drawings not only by Bronzino but also by Pontormo and other contemporary artists in the Uffizi’s collection as well as those of other important European and North American collections. It is thus possible to follow the development of this master of Florentine Mannerism, from his training under Pontormo to the preparatory studies for his major works, with a special focus on his portraiture, his work for the Medici tapestries, and his decoration of the Chapel of Eleonora of Toledo in Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio.

London, The British Museum 22 April-25 July 2010 A selection of a hundred masterpieces, among the most significant works in two of the world’s richest collections of drawings, this exhibition highlights the central role of Italian drawing in European Renaissance art. Selection of the works for the exhibition centres on the themes, styles, and techniques of Italian 15th-century drawing and on its use. Various expressions of this art are shown, from plan drawings to studies and documentation of natural subjects, to architectural drawings and drawing for the applied arts. At the centre of the exhibition is the human form; in particular, studies of antique works and the nude are arranged in chronological order, culminating in the early 16thcentury examples left to us by Michelangelo, Raphael, and Titian.

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the bargello

he Bargello National Museum is found in the former Palazzo del Capitano del Popolo, built in 1255 and embellished in 1287 with the beautiful loggia which opens onto the courtyard. Here, the Podestà called the representatives of the Arti and the Corporazioni (guilds) to meetings. The tower, predating the building, once housed the “Montanina,” the bell that tolled to gather Florence’s population in time of war or siege. In 1502, the palace became the seat of the Consiglio di Giustizia e della Polizia, headed by the Bargello or chief of police. Until 1857, the palace was also used as a prison. Following restoration by the architect Francesco Mazzei, in 1886 the Bargello was transformed into a museum of sculpture and examples of the “minor arts.” Some of the greatest sculptures of the Renaissance have found their home here: masterpieces by Donatello, Verrocchio, Michelangelo, and Cellini. Over time, prestigious collections of small bronzes, majolica-ware, wax pieces, enamelled works, medals, ivories, amber, tapestries, seals, and fabrics, some from the Medici collections and some from private donations, have enriched the museum’s holdings.

Via del Proconsolo, 4 open: Monday to Sunday 8.15-14.00 closed: 1st, 3rd, 5th Sundays and 2nd and 4th Mondays of every month, 1 January, 1 May, 25 December

www.polomuseale.firenze.it/bargello

From the Director of the Bargello On becoming Director of the Bargello in spring 2001, I immediately decided to put my vision of the future of the museum into practice by creating two interconnecting rooms on the ground floor of this magnificent 14th-century palace. This relatively small space was intended to house temporary exhibitions and the collections of sculptures previously kept here were transferred to other rooms. Thus in 2003, with the full support of the Superintendents of Museums in Florence, first Antonio Paolucci and then Cristina Acidini, I was able to initiate a series of exhibitions of an international calibre. The quality of the works and the incisive critical approach have compensated for the modest space available. Thus close collaboration, both in practical and scholarly terms, was established with the largest European and American museums, giving rise to a series of important exhibitions mainly dedicated to sculpture. Now almost an annual event, these have met with great public and critical success. In 2004 Portrait of a Renaissance Banker: Bindo Altoviti from Raphael to Cellini was held in collaboration with the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston; Giambologna: gods and heroes in 2006 brought together over one hundred items including some exhibited within the museum, and was then transferred to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna on a reduced scale; this was followed in 2007 by Desiderio da Settignano: the discovery of grace in Renaissance sculpture, held in collaboration with the Louvre and the National Gallery of Art in Washington; The Great Bronzes of the Baptistery: the art of Vincenzo Danti, Michelangelo’s disciple opened in 2008; in 2009 the exhibition Living Sculpture: Gian Lorenzo Bernini and the birth of the Baroque portrait was held in collaboration with the J. Paul Getty Museum of Los Angeles and the National Gallery of Art, Ottawa. The Great Bronzes of the Baptistery: Rustici and Leonardo takes place in 2010. Requiring considerable commitment and financial resources, these international exhibitions have been accompanied by more modest events, though no less important academically, usually highlighting masterpieces in the Bargello following their restoration. These have included: Bronze and Gold: the restoration of Verrocchio’s David (2003, in collaboration with the High Museum of Art in Atlanta); The Return of Love: Donatello’s Attis Restored (2005); Jacopo Sansovino: the papier-mâché Madonna (2008, in collaboration with the Istituto Centrale del Restauro, Rome). To coincide with the various exhibitions and with the spring season – the busiest tourist period in the city – an agreement with the Pergola Theatre has led to an ongoing series of theatrical and musical events, held in the magnificent courtyard of the Bargello on spring and early summer evenings. Beatrice Paolozzi Strozzi

exhibition Il metodo e il talento. Igino Supino, primo direttore del Bargello. 1896-1906 5 March-6 June 2010 Curated by Beatrice Paolozzi Strozzi and Silvio Balloni The exhibition recounts the history of the formation of the museum at the end of the 19th century, through the figure of its first director, Igino Benvenuto Supino (1858-1940): a great art historian but also a painter and museologist of international repute.

works on loan among others are • Benvenuto Cellini, Perseo in: Shangai, Padiglione Italia, Universal Expo, 1 May-31 October 2010 for the exhibition: La città dell’uomo. Vivere all’italiana

• Francesco di Simone Ferrucci or Giovan Francesco Rustici, Madonna con Bambino (Madonna Fontebuoni), c. 1475 • Lorenzo di Pietro called il Vecchietta, San Bernardino da Siena, 1475 in: Terni, Centro per le Arti - Opificio ex Siri, until 2 May 2010 for the exhibition: Piermatteo d’Amelia. Un protagonista del Rinascimento tra Firenze e Roma, • Andrea del Riccio, Pastore che munge la

events Estate al Bargello 2010. Tra musica, teatro e danza (Summer at the Bargello: music, theatre and dance)

The programme of summer events in the courtyard of the Museum starts on 18 May; this summer programming began in 2003 thanks to the Soprintendenza Speciale per il Polo Museale Fiorentino, the Ente Teatrale Italiano and the Teatro della Pergola. 2010 sees a truly integrated and multidisciplinary programme which runs for over two months, right through to 29 July, using the space of the museum not only as a location but also as a source of inspiration. The season opens with theatre, Luigi Pirandello’s Uomo dal fiore in bocca with the actor Sandro Lombardi, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. July is set aside for music with the Orchestra da Camera Fiorentina which will bring some of the best and most well-known ensembles and soloists to the Bargello, and to dance, produced by the Florence Dance Festival.

capra Amaltea in: Rome, Palazzo Venezia, until 1 June 2010 for the exhibition: La forma del Rinascimento

J. Paul Getty Museum, until 20 June 2010 for the exhibition: Leonardo da Vinci e l’invenzione della scultura rinascimentale

• Maestro del Giudizio di Paride, Desco da parto • Cassone istoriato in: Florence, Galleria dell’Accademia, 7 June1 November 2010 for the exhibition: Pittura da camera. Arredi dipinti del Rinascimento fiorentino

• Donatello (attributed to), Busto di giovane • Medals 15th to 18th century, among others by Domenico di Polo, Massimiliano Soldani Benzi and Antonio Selvi • Various works (15th century) in: Florence, Museo degli Argenti, until 27 June 2010 for the exhibition: Pregio e bellezza. Cammei e intagli dei Medici

• Giambologna, Ratto delle Sabine in: Lugano, Museum of Art, until 13 June 2010 for the exhibition: Robert Mapplethorpe. La perfezione nella forma • Giovanni Francesco Rustici, Gruppo di battaglia equestre, c. 1510 • Bertoldo di Giovanni, Rilievo di battaglia, c. 1479 in: Los Angeles,

• Various works, among which are Arca dei martiri Proto Giacinto e Nemesio by Lorenzo Ghiberti and Spiritello by Donatello in: Siena, Santa Maria della Scala e Opera della Metropolitana, until 11 July 2010

for the exhibition: Da Jacopo della Quercia a Donatello. Le arti a Siena nel primo Rinascimento • Works French, Flemish and Italian from the 13th to the 15th century in: Turin, Reggia di Venaria Reale, until 1 August 2010 for the exhibition: Il corpo e il volto di Cristo • Pierino da Vinci, Sansone uccide i Filistei (copy of a bronze by Michelangelo) in: Goteborg, until 15 August 2010 for the exhibition: The Masters of the Renaissance • Tino da Camaino, Madonna col Bambino in: Casole d’Elsa, Museo Archeologico della Collegiata, until 3 October 2010 for the exhibition: Marco Romano

Recently the Gallery has been further enriched by the important collection of antique musical instruments from the Department of Musical Instruments of the Cherubini Conservatory.

the accademia

Dipartimento degli Strumenti Musicali

he Gallery is particularly famous for its sculptures by Michelangelo: the Prisoners, St. Matthew and, especially, the statue of David which was transferred to the specially designed tribune from Piazza della Signoria in 1873. Formerly part of two monasteries, the adjacent rooms house important works of art brought here from the Academy of Design, the Academy of Fine Arts and the suppressed monasteries during the 19th century. The holdings comprise mostly religious paintings by major artists who worked in and around Florence between the mid-13th and the late 16th centuries. The collection is especially important for its paintings on a gold background and the splendid late-gothic polyptychs, which are complete in all their parts. There is also a collection of sculptures in plaster by the 19th-century sculptors Lorenzo Bartolini and Luigi Pampaloni, besides a section of Russian icons. In addition to the well-known works already mentioned, the Gallery houses masterpieces by Giotto and his followers, by Taddeo Gaddi, Andrea Orcagna, Lorenzo Monaco and numerous other artists, including those most representative of art and artistic schools from the 13th to the 19th century.

Via Ricasoli, 58-60 open: Tuesday to Sunday 8.15-18.50 closed: 1 January, 1 May, 25 December

www.polomuseale.firenze.it/musei/accademia

exhibition Virtù d’amore. Pittura nuziale nel Quattrocento fiorentino 8 June-1 november 2010 Curated by Franca Falletti, Daniela Parenti, Elisabetta Nardinocchi and Ludovica Sebregondi The bedroom was the heart of the Renaissance home: the most intimate and protected place where the marriage was consummated, children were born, and people died. “Spalliere” (headboards) like the Cassone Adimari in the Galleria dell’Accademia which has inspired the exhibition, and the decorated panels of marriage chests are exemplary objects of the Florentine Renaissance home showing high fashion, the celebration of festivities, the ritual that accompanied marriage, from engagement to the entrance of a wife into her husband’s house. The objects shown feature work by illustrious painters such as Botticelli, Filippino Lippi, and Pesellino, and provide an exceptional image of the Florentine workshops engaged in their production, objects at the height of their popularity precisely during the 15th century. The exhibition has been organized in conjunction with the Horne Museum which presents important examples from the large nucleus of painted chests (cassoni) in its collection. These rare pieces, part of Herbert Percy Horne’s original collection, are enriched on this unique occasion by several works on loan from private collectors.

leonora di Toledo, wife of Cosimo I, bought and greatly extended Palazzo Pitti to create a light and airy residence surrounded by a leafy park for the large ducal family. The palace, enhanced by magnificent grounds was, however, linked by the Vasari corridor to the Uffizi and Palazzo Vecchio which remained the official power base and seat of government. In the course of its lengthy history the impressive building has been home

palazzo pitti

The Palatine Gallery and Royal Apartments

The Palatine Gallery and Royal Apartments occupy the entire first floor of Palazzo Pitti. The Palatine Gallery was created in the late 18th and early 19th century by the Lorraine family to exhibit masterpieces mainly from the Medici collections and houses works by Raphael, Titian, Caravaggio, Rubens, Pietro da Cortona and other Italian and European masters of the Renaissance and 17th century. The 14 magnificent rooms of the right wing of the palace house the Royal Apartments, formerly the private residence of the sovereigns, are decorated with furnishings, fittings and works of art dating from the 16th to the 19th century.

A Princely Collection The Palatine Gallery owes much of its attraction to the fact that it is still housed in the sumptuous rooms of Palazzo Pitti, the grand-ducal residence, itself decorated with frescoes and furnishings of outstanding beauty, dating from the 1600s to the 1800s. The gallery’s splendour is accentuated by the ancient “quadreria” arrangement; that is, with its walls of masterpieces set like gems in richly carved and gilded frames, themselves commissioned by the Medici and Lorraine. Each painting has an artistic history, of course, but it also has an illustrious “collection history,” since each item was commissioned or acquired by the grand dukes of Tuscany or by the Medici family. Centuries of enlightened patronage now mean that the Palatine collection is home to the world’s most important group of works by Raphael and Andrea del Sarto, followed by masterpieces by Titian and the greatest Italian and Flemish masters, hung, level above level, on the walls of the “Sale dei Pianeti” halls frescoed by Pietro da Cortona and his school. A museum of this type, with the adjoining Royal Apartments, has always required very special care. The foremost task of the museum’s Director, staff, and security personnel, is to ensure good maintenance so that the site may be best enjoyed by the public, and this has been the priority of all the directors to date. In the Sala Bianca and adjoining rooms, the Palatine Gallery hosts exhibitions of great academic interest and importance as well as small “dossier-exhibitions” illustrating restoration work and displaying paintings brought out of storage.

Gallery of Modern Art

The Gallery on the second floor of Palazzo Pitti shows paintings and sculptures mainly by Italian artists, dating from the late 18th century to the First World War. The works displayed in these magnificent rooms, once the residence of the Lorraine grand dukes, range from the neo-classical period to Romanticism and include a fine collection of the Macchiaioli artists, important examples of late 19th-century Italian schools, as well as 20th-century artistic movements.

Alessandro Cecchi Director, Palatine Gallery, Royal Apartments, and Boboli Gardens

open: Tuesday to Sunday 8.15-18.50 closed: 1 January, 1 May, 25 December

open: Tuesday to Sunday 8.15-18.50 closed: 1 January, 1 May, 25 December The Royal Apartments are closed every year during the month of January for general maintenance.

calendar of exhibitions april-september 2010 Pregio e bellezza. Cammei e intagli dei Medici Museo degli Argenti 25 march-27 June 2010

L’Arma per l’Arte. Aspetti del Sacro ritrovati

Exhibition curated by Ornella Casazza and Riccardo Gennaioli

Galleria Palatina, Sala Bianca 21 November 2009-6 April 2010

Gem collecting was one of the most fascinating aspects of the rediscovery of antiquity which characterised the Renaissance. Beginning in the first half of the 15th century, cameos and intaglios were much sought after by popes, princes and cardinals and reached staggering prices. The Medici joined in the craze, rapidly acquiring carvings on precious and semiprecious stones and creating one of the most important collections in history. Presenting a select number of pieces of exceptional quality from the most important Italian and foreign museums, the exhibition will illustrate the complex history of these treasures, starting from the formation of the collection by Cosimo, Piero and, especially, Lorenzo de’ Medici.

This exhibition, and the two complementary shows held in Rome and Naples, provides an opportunity to appreciate the achievement over the last forty years of the special squad of the Carabinieri responsible for the protection of Italy’s cultural heritage (Comando Tutela Patrimonio Artistico) and what can and must be done in the future to defend the nation’s arts and cultural history.

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not only to the Medici and Lorraine grand dukes, but also to Italy’s royal family. Today it houses several impressive collections of paintings and sculptures, artefacts, porcelain and a costume gallery, and is a perfectly preserved historic building, surrounded by the Boboli Gardens, one of the most famous Italian parks. This prestigious structure Piazza Pitti www.polomuseale.firenze.it/musei/palazzopitti now houses seven museums.

Silver Museum

Carriage Museum

The museum houses fine examples of carriages used by the Lorraine and Savoy courts during the 18th and 19th centuries as well as antique harnesses for horses. The oldest vehicle is a privately-owned 18th-century coupé, but the main nucleus consists of 19th-century saloon carriages. The collection is currently housed in a warehouse awaiting completion of the project which will provide more suitable accommodation for the carriages in the Medici stables.

On the ground and mezzanine floors of Palazzo Pitti, the museum’s collections contain the famous Medici Treasury. The museum is named after the silver which belonged to the collections of the bishops of Salzburg, brought to Florence in 1815 by Ferdinand III of Lorraine. The museum also contains an important collection of jewellery, dating from the 17th to the 21th century, as well as elegant Chinese and Japanese porcelain.

open only on request and by appointment.

Porcelain Museum

Located in the 18th-century “Palazzina del Cavaliere”, the museum houses the finest European porcelain collected by Pietro Leopoldo and Ferdinand III. The collection was further enhanced in 1860 by the addition of porcelain hastily removed from the historic residences of the Savoy at Parma, Piacenza and Sala Baganza, in order to furnish the royal apartments in Florence.

Costume Gallery

Located in Palazzo Pitti’s 18th-century “Palazzina della Meridiana”, the gallery contains some 6,000 items ranging from antique and modern dress to accessories and theatre costumes, dating from the 18th century to the present day. The gallery is the only museum to represent the history of fashion in Italy and is one of the most important of its kind on the international scene. Frequent temporary exhibitions are held illustrating particular aspects of the collections.

Boboli Gardens

Silver Museum Porcelain Museum Costume Gallery open: every day, 8.15-16.30 from November to February, 8.15-17.30 March and October after official summer time sets in, 8.15-18.30 in April, May, September and October, 8.15-18.50 in June, July and August closed: first and last Monday of each month, 1 January, 1 May, 25 December

Behind the Pitti Palace lie the magnificent Boboli Gardens, now included in the group of “Great Italian Gardens”. The grounds were first laid out at the time of the Medici, creating the Italianate garden which would become a model for many of the European courts. The extensive grounds constitute a veritable open-air museum, filled with antique and Renaissance statues, and enhanced with grottoes and grand fountains. open: every day, 8.15-16.30 from November to February, 8.15-17.30 in March and October after official summer time sets in, 8.15-18.30 in April, May, September and October, 8.15-19.30 in June, July and August closed: first and last Monday of each month, 1 January, 1 May, 25 December

calendar of exhibitions april-september 2010 Caravaggio e caravaggeschi a Firenze Palatine Gallery Uffizi Gallery 22 May-10 October 2010 Exhibition design: Gianni Papi Exhibition Director: Stefano Casciu for the Palatine Gallery; Antonio Natali for the Uffizi Gallery Thanks to Florence’s conspicuous wealth in works by Caravaggio and painting in the style of Caravaggio, and thanks to many works on loan, two of the greatest of Florence’s museums, the Uffizi and the Palatine Gallery, host the exhibition Caravaggio e caravaggeschi a Firenze on occasion of the celebrations for the 400th anniversary of the death of the artist. Forty years after the pioneering exhibition curated by Evelina Borea, this year’s event presents more than one hundred well- and lesser-known paintings in the light of information that has emerged from research into documentation, and new attributions that have changed critical perception.

Vinum nostrum. Arte, scienza e miti del vino nelle civiltà del Mediterraneo antico Museo degli Argenti 20 July 2010-15 May 2011 From Mesopotamia to our table today, from the rite of communion to lewd drunkenness, from a distasteful habit to the gates of spirituality, wine and the vine are the protagonists of this exhibition. Original artefacts, sculptures, frescoes and mosaics, accompanied by multimedia and video installations, recount the history of the grapevine and of wine across thousands of years, as well as the important influence they exerted over ancient culture. Following a chronological arrangement, the exhibition illustrates the origin of winegrowing in the Near East, its success and its related symbolic, religious and cultural significance in the Hellenic world, up to the production and wide-scale diffusion achieved by the Romans.

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opificio delle pietre dure and the restoration laboratories

s might be gathered from its unusual name, the origin of the Institute is composite, fruit of an ancient and illustrious tradition and modern, wideranging activity. Founded under Ferdinando I de’ Medici in 1588 for the manufacture of furnishings using semiprecious stones, in the late 19th century the work of the Opificio changed character, shifting toward restoration - first of materials produced during its own centuries of history and then of related materials. Following the catastrophic flood of November 1966 and the establishment of the Ministry for Cultural and Environmental Assets (MiBAC) in 1975, the old Medici

activities open to the public Among the many opportunities offered by the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, mention must be made of the opportunity for visitors to encounter the world of restoration, to witness first-hand the many delicate operations involved in the various phases of restoration. Of particular note are: “effetto restauro” (the restoration effect) Reservation only, appointments to see works undergoing restoration in the Opificio’s laboratories. guided tours of the Restoration Laboratories Reservation only, visit the Restoration Laboratories with expert guides. For information, see the website

events Conference, “Opificio delle Pietre Dure, eccellenza fiorentina da valorizzare e sostenere” 10 April 2010 Organised by the Lions Club Bargello, Florence. Florence, Opera di Santa Croce Presentation of the restored Coperta Guicciardini and its double, its English twin. 24 April 2010 Florence, Palazzo Davanzati

exhibition David e Golia. Il restauro di due formelle sbalzate e damascate del Museo Stibbert Museo dell’Opificio end of April to the end of May

Opificio and the Restoration Laboratory of the Fine Arts Service were merged to create a single entity, a true “rapid response team” for the restoration of works damaged by the flood. This was later flanked by the “minor” laboratories that grew up in response to the needs of the postflood period. When MiBAC was reorganised in 2007, the Opificio became an Istituto Centrale in recognition of its value at the national and international levels. The historic Opificio delle Pietre Dure is therefore now a modern centre specialised in restoration and constituting both a laboratory and school that are unique in the world. The institute is subdivided into specific sections including: tapestries, bronzes and antique weapons, paintings on canvas and on panel, wall paintings, works on paper and fibre, stone materials, mosaic and Florentine commesso work, goldsmiths’ and silversmiths’ work, painted wooden sculptures, ceramics and models, and textiles. The adjacent museum is the direct

restoration – in progress or recently completed Hundreds of works, among them some of the most significant in world art, have been restored in recent decades. Among the most recent are: the Reliquary of Sant’Antonio Abate from the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo di Firenze; the shrine of the Sacra Cintola from the Duomo in Prato; the Pala di San Zeno by Mantegna, from Verona; the polyptych of San Giacomo in Peghera (Bergamo) by Palma il Vecchio; the Crucifix by Brunelleschi from the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence; the Madonna by Matteo Civitali, a sculpture in wood from the Museo Horne in Florence; the roughly 280 drawings of the Codice Resta from the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan; the two 16th-century decorated windows from the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana; the mural paintings of Pietro da Cortona, from the Sala di Marte in Palazzo Pitti; the tapestries with stories of Joseph from the Sala dei Duecento in Palazzo Vecchio; the Traviamento del Figliol prodigo from the Museo del Tesoro del Duomo di Vigevano. Among works in the course of restoration: mural paintings by Agnolo Gaddi, a surface area of roughly1.000 square meters,from the Cappella Maggiore of the Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence; a Madonna with Child, painted

descendent of the older artistic workshop. The museum does not depend on collecting but rather mirrors the history of the centuries of production carried out here. The most prestigious creations are today preserved in palaces and museums throughout Europe, whence they arrived as gifts from the grand dukes, while the production workshops mainly contain uncompleted works or the results of later modifications of originals.In short, the material that survived the dispersal of the 1800s, which was called to a halt in 1882 when the collection was granted museum status. The collection contains pieces of great evocative power and sophistication, outlining the history of the workshop over three centuries, as well as an important collection of antique marbles and works in semiprecious stone exemplifying the commesso fiorentino inlay technique. Via degli Alfani, 78; Fortezza da Basso, Viale Strozzi, 1; Sala delle Bandiere, Palazzo Vecchio Museum open: mornings only for 1 hour maximum accompanied by the Museum’s staff and for groups not larger than 30 people. Entrance, maximum 4 people at a time, every morning from Monday to Saturday is at fixed times (8.30, 9.50, 11.10, 12.30)

www.opificiodellepietredure.it

terracotta, from Citerna and attributed to Donatello; a Madonna with Child in glazed and painted terracotta, attributed to Luca della Robbia il Giovane, also from Citerna; a large bas-relief in terracotta representing a Madonna and Child, by Jacopo Sansovino, from the Musei Civici of Vicenza; a Lamentation of the Dead Christ, painted terracotta, attributed to Michele da Firenze, from the Musei Civici of Modena; the Coperta Guicciardini from the Bargello and the Paliotto fiorito from the Chiesa di Santa Maria Novella in Florence; the Tabernacolo dei Linaioli by Beato Angelico from the Museo di San Marco in Florence; the Crucifix painted by Giotto from the Chiesa di Ognissanti in Florence; the painted Crucifix from San Marco; the Paliotto di San Zanobi by the Maestro del Bigallo; il Triptych of San Michele from the Museo di Asciano by Ambrogio Lorenzetti; the Madonna and Child by Andrea Mantegna from the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo; Titian’s La Bella from the Galleria Palatina; Roman mosaic paving from the Museo Nazionale di Villa Guinigi in Lucca; la Fontana dell’Isola, in marble and bronze, from the Boboli Gardens in Florence; the “Porcellino”, a bronze sculpture by Pietro Tacca, with its original base, from the Museo Bardini; the two heads of the Prophet in bronze, by

Donatello, from the Cantoria in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo in Florence; the 13thcentury embroidered Veil from the Museo dell’Opera Metropolitana of Siena. Almost finished is the work on the doors of the Porta del Paradiso of the Battistero di San Giovanni in Florence.

new publications ‘OPD Restauro’ published by Centro Di, is the Opificio’s official Journal. Inititated in 1986 this is an annual publication containing the most significant findings following restoration in all fields. • The Journal’s first series includes three issues (1, 1986; 2, 1987; 3, 1988) with the title ‘OPD Restauro. Quaderni dell’Opificio delle Pietre Dure e Laboratori di Restauro di Firenze’. • The second series is now at its 20th volume (1, 1989-20, 2008) with the title ‘OPD Restauro’. To be noted among recent monographs are • Scientific Examination for the Investigation of Paintings: A Handbook for Conservatorsrestorers, Edited by D. Pinna, M. Galeotti, R. Mazzeo, Firenze, Centro Di, 2009 • La Pala di San Zeno di Andrea Mantegna. Studio e conservazione, Edited by M. Ciatti e P. Marin, Firenze, Edifir, 2009

The Riccardi, one of Florence’s most wealthy and powerful families, enjoyed a rapid rise to power from the second half of the 16th century, and reached their moment of greatest prestige when, in 1659, for the sum of 40,000 scudi, Gabriello and Francesco Riccardi bought the palace in Via Largo from the Medici; since then it has been known as Palazzo Medici Riccardi. After appropriate restoration and expansion, the palace supplied a fine home for their entire collection of books and artworks. The Gallery, renowned for its frescoes by Luca Giordano that decorate it, served as the entry to the library, today the Sala di Studio with its magnificent carved and gilded shelves.

Biblioteca Marucelliana

This prestigious Florentine institution, founded on 18 September 1752, was conceived by Francesco Marucelli as a general library open to the public, as declared by the inscription on the façade “Marucellorum Bibliotheca publicae maxime pauperum utilitati.” The original core of the collection is the library of Abbot Francesco Marucelli, who ordered that upon his death (Rome, 1703) his library in his palace in Via Condotti should be used to create a public library in Florence, which at the time had no such institution. With its important collections, ancient and modern, the library has continued to grow from the time of its foundation. Via Cavour, 43-47 open: Monday to Friday 8.30-19.00, Saturday 8.30-13.45

www.maru.firenze.sbn.it

Via Ginori, 10 open: Monday, Thursday 8.00-17.30, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday 8.00-14.00

www.riccardiana.firenze.sbn.it

exhibition Imparare a leggere e scrivere nell’Italia del dopoguerra: sillabari, sussidiari e televisione 6 March-30 April 2010 idea and design: Gilberto Giusti texts and preparation: Isabella Bonifacio

Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana (Laurentian Library)

Opened to the public in 1571 by order of Grand Duke Cosimo I, who wanted everyone to enjoy Michelangelo’s marvellous, albeit unfinished, work, the library, then as now, is known as “Medicea” and “Laurenziana” in recognition of its noble origin and its location in the elegant upper cloister of the Basilica di San Lorenzo. The codici that constituted the private library of the Medici were given uniform reddish-brown leathercovers bearing the Medici crest. Michelangelo originally conceived the splendid staircase as a construction in walnut, but it was built in Tuscan grey stone in 1559 by Bartolomeo Ammannati after an original model by Buonarroti. Piazza San Lorenzo, 9 open: Monday, Wednesday, Friday 8.00-14.00, Tuesday, Thursday 8.00-17.30

www.bml.firenze.sbn.it

exhibition Díaita. Le regole della salute nei manoscritti della Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana 13 February-26 June 2010

The exhibition is in two sections: the first shows spelling-books, primers and reading books from 1945 to 1962 from the Biblioteca Marucelliana collections; the second is dedicated to Alberto Manzi. .

events 25 May 2010 At 17.30 the South Korean poet, KO UN, candidate for the Nobel prize in 2002, in 2004 and finalist in 2005, presents the collection of poems, L’isola che canta (LietoColle, 2009), translated into Italian by Enza D’Urso. 4 June 2010 Presentation of Firenze e me by Clara Nistri (Firenze, Polistampa, 2010), with a photographic exhibition by Graziella Bindocci.

Biblioteca Nazionale

What is today the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze began as the private library of Antonio Magliabechi, counting about 30,000 volumes and left in 1714 “to the universal benefit of the City of Florence.” In 1737 it was decreed that a copy of every single work printed in Florence be deposited in the library and its holdings increased significantly. From 1743 onward, all volumes published within the Grand Duchy of Tuscany also went to the library. In 1861, the Biblioteca Magliabechiana and the large Biblioteca Palatina (founded by Ferdinando III of Lorraine and continued by his successor Leopoldo II) were merged into one. The new institution took the name of “Biblioteca Nazionale” and was originally located in rooms within the Uffizi complex. In 1935 it moved to its current building where construction had begun in 1911 following the plans of architect Cesare Bazzani. Later enlarged by the architect Vincenzo Mazzei, the building is a rare example of Italian library architecture and is part of the monumental area of the Santa Croce complex. Since 1869, the Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze automatically receives a copy of every item published in Italy. Piazza dei Cavalleggeri, 1 open: Monday to Friday 8.15-19.00, Saturday 8.15-13.30

www.bncf.firenze.sbn.it

Biblioteca delle Oblate

Inaugurated on 25 May 2007, this dynamic new library, with its interesting Conservation and Local History section, immediately became a major cultural centre in the very heart of Florence. Just a few steps from Piazza Duomo, the library is housed in the evocative 14thcentury former convent of the Oblate nuns from whom it has taken its name. Via dell’Oriuolo, 26 open: Monday 14.00-19.00, from Tuesday to Saturday 9.0024.00 (opening hours subject to change)

www.bibliotecadelleoblate.it

from Monday to Saturday 9.30-13.30 special opening 14 February and 2 May This exhibtion focuses on the strategy of a healthy life style as depicted in antique manuscripts and codices.

libraries

Biblioteca Riccardiana

activities Leggere per non dimenticare 7 October 2009-19 May 2010 An interesting series of encounters with contemporary writers and their work by Anna Benedetti.

exhibition Parole figurate: i libri d’artista dei cento Amici del libro 17 April-8 May 2010 On the occasion of the Settimana della Cultura (16-25 April), a repeat of the exhibition shown in 2009 in the Sale di Palazzo Magnani in Reggio Emilia, displaying the publications of the Cento Amici del Libro Associazione, founded in Florence in 1939 by Ugo Ojetti and other literary figures of the period, and which is now 70 years old. In the period 1939-2009 a “Catalogo” of 44 publications that for their technical and typographical interest, not only for their writers and artists, represeant a significant panorama of Italian arts in the period: among the most recent authors, unpublished work by Mario Luzi, Eugenio De Signoribus, Yves Bonnefoy and Carlo Gozzi, and among the artists Arnaldo Pomodoro, Mimmo Paladino, Emilio Isgrò, Pietro Cascella and Tullio Pericoli.

cenacoli and fresco cycles

Church and Monastery of Santa Maria del Carmine

Many frescoes of the Last Supper are still preserved in the refectories of Florentine churches. The fresco in the Carmine Monastery, painted by Alessandro Allori in 1581, is of particular importance; on the far left is a self-portrait of the artist and on the far right a portrait of Father Luca of Venice who commissioned the work. Built in the 13th century, the Carmine church is also noted for the splendid Brancacci Chapel, on the right side of the transept, with frescoes by Masaccio and Masolino, completed by Filippino Lippi. Piazza del Carmine open: Monday and Wednesday to Saturday 10.00-17.00, Sunday 13.00-17.00 closed: 1 January, 7 January, Easter Sunday, 1 May, 15 August, 25 December

Sant’Apollonia

The museum occupies part of the historic Benedictine Convent of Sant’Apollonia. Alongside other detached frescoes by Andrea del Castagno and their sinopie, the refectory houses his Last Supper (c. 1450) which not only is one of the artist’s most important works, but also represents the first painting of this subject in the Renaissance style in Florence. The impact of Del Castagno’s Last Supper is more striking and original. It appears to be set in a fantastic niche, created with a skilful use of perspective and attention to the smallest of details.

Via XXVII Aprile, 1 open: every day 8.15-13.50 closed: 1st, 3rd and 5th Sundays, and 2nd, 4th Mondays of each month, 1 January, 1 May, 25 December

Church and Convent of Santa Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi

Dated 1257, the original church and its adjacent monastery were dedicated to Santa Maria Maddalena delle Convertite recalling the hostel for repentant prostitutes which previously stood here. The church was rebuilt at the end of the 15th century to a design by Giuliano da Sangallo who introduced the four-arched portico at the entrance. The monastery is now famous for Perugino’s evocative fresco of the Crucifixion made between 1493 and 1496. The Convent also houses paintings by Luca Giordano, Bernardino Poccetti and Passignano.

Church and Monastery of Ognissanti

While the adjacent church now has an elegant baroque façade, the 13th-century Convento degli Umiliati houses a fresco of the Last Supper painted by Domenico Ghirlandaio in 1480. Located in its Refectory, situated between the two impressive cloisters (over 8 metres long), this is one of the finest examples of later Renaissance art. As the fresco has been detached, the sinopia is also visible, located on the left The monastery contains not only further works by Domenico Ghirlandaio, but also by other well-known artists, such as Sandro Botticelli.

Borgo Pinti, 58 open: every day 7.30-12.30, 16.30-18.30

Borgo Ognissanti, 42 open: Monday, Tuesday, and Saturday 9.0012.00 closed: the whole month of August and holidays

Fuligno

San Salvi

Located in the former convent of the Franciscan nuns of Sant’Onofrio, also known as the Fuligno or Foligno Sisters from the name of their town of origin, is the Fuligno Last Supper (1495), now recognised as the work of Pietro Perugino and workshop, but previously believed to be by Raphael. The Refectory is now a museum and, in addition to the Last Supper, houses detached frescoes by Bicci di Lorenzo and, located beside the entrance, a tabernacle by Giovanni di San Giovanni portraying the Virgin and Child with Saints from the suppressed monastery of St Anthony in Via Cennini. Via Faenza, 42 open: Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday 9.00-12.00 closed: 1 January, 1 May, 25 December

The Museum of the San Salvi Refectory, housed in part of the former monastery of Vallombrosan monks beside the church of San Michele a San Salvi, contains one of the true hidden gems of the city. Andrea del Sarto’s magnificent Last Supper, a genuine masterpiece of Renaissance painting, is located in the Refectory and dates from 1526-27. His work represents one of the most spectacular examples of the subject, partially anticipating the baroque style in the strongly theatrical arrangement of the scene, which appears like a stage set.

Chiostro dello Scalzo

The cloister originally formed the entrance to the Chapel of the Brotherhood of St John the Baptist, founded in 1376 and known as the “Scalzi”as its members went barefoot. The great Florentine artist Andrea del Sarto was responsible for the fresco cycle still visible today, which he painted in several stages between 1509 and 1526. The fine monochrome scenes represent episodes from the Life of St John the Baptist and the Virtues. Two of the episodes were actually painted by Franciabigio during Del Sarto’s absence. Via Cavour, 69 open: Monday, Thursday, Saturday 8.15-13.50

Santo Spirito

The old Refectory of the Augustinian convent, is one of the rare surving remains of a Medieval convent. Long forgotten, by the end of the 19th century the building was being used as storage for tram carriages. Work at the time caused the destruction of Andrea Orcagna’s Last Supper. The remaining fragments are barely visible today under a Crucifixion dated between 1360 and 1365. The large room now houses a collection of sculptures from the 11th to the 15th century donated to the city by the antique dealer Salvatore Romano. Piazza Santo Spirito, 29

Via San Salvi, 16 open: Tuesday to Sunday 8.15-13.50 closed: 1 January, 1 May, 25 December

Alla maniera d’oggi. Base a Firenze. Installazioni a San Marco Curated by Marco Bazzini 4 February-11 April 2010 On the occasion of the exhibition entitled Alla maniera d’oggi. Base a Firenze, the Museum of San Marco hosts two installations in the Sant’Antonino Cloister, the Sala Capitolare and the Biblioteca Monumentale: Riflesse riflessioni (Reflections Reflected) by Paolo Masi and Habitat dell’aria (Habitat of Air) by Mario Airò. Curated by Marco Bazzini, director of the Luigi Pecci Centre for Contemporary Art, the exhibition remains open from 4 February until 11 April 2010 during the usual museum opening times. events The San Marco Museum is participating in this special event under the patronage of the Museums of France, “La Notte Europea dei Musei 2010”, Saturday 15 May 2010, with special opening and free entry from 19-23. 20.30, Biblioteca Monumentale, in collaboration with the Conservatorio di Musica “L. Cherubini” di Firenze, concert for voice, flute and guitar (Elise Efremov Bobescu, soprano; Simona Miniati, flute; Alessandro Giglioli, guitar), music of A. Roussel, B. Britten, H. Villa Lobos, E. Granados, G. Fauré. Settimana della Cultura 16-25 April 2010 “Gli affreschi dell’Angelico a luce naturale. Proposte di lettura” The initiative will include one or more lectures and guided tours.

he museum, designed in 1436 by Michelozzo, occupies a vast area of the Dominican convent of San Marco, which played an important role in the cultural and religious life of Florence, especially at the time of Savonarola, Prior of San Marco. The museum owes its renown especially to the paintings of Fra Angelico, one of the great artists of the Renaissance, who made frescoes in many of the convent’s spaces. Other works by Fra Angelico were assembled here in the 20th century, resulting in a remarkable collection of the artist’s works. There is also an important collection of 16th-century paintings including works by Fra Bartolomeo. The museum has a section devoted to artefacts from buildings of the city centre which were demolished in the 19th century.

Piazza San Marco, 3 open: Monday to Friday 8.15-13.50, Saturday, Sunday and holidays 8.15-16.50 closed: 1st, 3rd and 5th Sundays, and 2nd and 4th Mondays of each month, 1 January, 1 May, 25 December

www.polomuseale.firenze.it/musei/sanmarco

news from the Museum Beato Angelico’s Il Giudizio finale, a panel painting, will be undergoing minor restoration in June.

works on loan • Beato Angelico, L’imposizione del nome al Battista, tempera-on-wood • Zanobi Stozzi, Scuola di San Tommaso d’Aquino, panel painting • Beato Angelico (attributed), Salterio I, illuminated codex in: Pontassieve (Firenze), Palazzo Comunale, Sala delle Colonne, until 27 June 2010 for the exhibition: Intorno all'Angelico di Pontassieve. Dipinti e sculture del Rinascimento fiorentino

he Museum of the Medici Chapels is incorporated in the complex of the basilica of San Lorenzo which, being the parish church of the Medici family, was particularly richly decorated. It is here that members of the family were buried from the mid-15th century onwards. The Museum is famous for the New Sacristy which Michelangelo designed for the tombs of Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici. The Chapel of the Princes was begun in the early 17th century to become the mausoleum of the Medici grand dukes.

Piazza Madonna degli Aldobrandini, 6 open: 8.15-13.50 closed: 2nd and 4th Sundays and 1st, 3rd, 5th Mondays of every month, 1 January, 1 May, 25 December

www.polomuseale.firenze.it/musei/cappellemedicee

exhibition “Parigi val bene una messa!”. L’omaggio dei Medici a Enrico IV re di Francia Curated by Monica Bietti, Francesca Fiorelli Malesci, Paul Mironneau 15 July-2 November 2010 Four hundred years after the assassination of Henry IV in Paris on 14 May 1610, the Soprintendenza of Florence with the Museum of the Medici Chapels, in conjunction with the Musée National du Chateau de Pau, celebrates the King of France and Navarre with a major exhibition. The fulcrum of the exhibition is represented by the 19 monochrome canvases that Cosimo II de’ Medici commissioned from Florentine academic painters to celebrate a funeral service for Henry IV, held with great pomp on 16 September 1610 in the Basilica of San Lorenzo.

• Fra’ Bartolomeo, Ritratto di Girolamo Savonarola, oil-on-wood in: Eriksbergshallen, Goteborg (Svezia), until 15 August 2010 for the exhibition: The Masters of the Renaissance • Jacopo Vignali, San Pietro visita Sant'Agata in carcere, oil-on-canvas in: Florence, Galleria Palatina e Galleria degli Uffizi, until 10 October 2010 for the exhibition: Caravaggio e i caravaggeschi a Firenze

restoration in progress Frescoes in the Chiostro di Sant’Antonino (east end): • Ludovico Buti, Sant’Antonino resuscita un fanciullo della famiglia Da Filicaia

• Alessandro Tiarini, Sant’Antonino predice ad un mercante che sarebbe scampato da una terribile burrasca • Alessandro Tiarini, Il restauro della Chiesa e del Convento di San Marco • Beato Angelico, Cristo in pietà, lunettes • Giovan Battista Vanni, Le Virtù, lunettes

other work undergoing restoration • Federigo Andreotti, Savonarola scaccia i due sicari inviatigli dalla Bentivoglio, oil on canvas • Jacopo Vignali, Il Battesimo di Costantino, oil on canvas

rsanmichele has had civil and religious functions in its time and has now been reopened to the public. It was also, as the fondly remembered Mayor of the city, Piero Bargellini, recalled “the place in which the Grain of the Comune was stored: the Grain of the people and of the poor”. In the middle of the 14th century the granary was consecrated for Christian worship. In the Museum on the first floor are original sculptures from the exterior. In the interior of the church is the magnificent marble tabernacle of the Madonna delle Grazie. Services are held regularly, including holy mass. A concert season open to the public takes place in the Church.

Via dell’Arte della Lana open ground floor: Tuesday to Sunday 10.00-17.00; Museum of Scupltures (first floor): Monday 10.00-17.00

san marco museum • medici chapels • orsanmichele

exhibition

www.polomuseale.firenze.it/musei/orsanmichele

santa croce monumental complex

first introduction to the last eight hundred years of Florentine history may be had from that panoramic balcony over the city that is Piazzale Michelangelo: the huge dome of the cathedral and the tower of Palazzo Vecchio are the two landmarks in the cityscape around which the history of the Florentine community played out from the 13th century to our times. During the last quarter of the 13th century, Florentia – the city-state that shortly after its birth invented international finance and the financial economy, that launched an extraordinary economic miracle, and that coined the first internationally-recognised currency: the gold florin – was re-founded and reconstructed, beginning with the, by that time, insufficient perimeter represented by the original Roman castrum. The area circumscribed by the first circle of walls expanded by more than 8 kilometres (that is, the city’s size went from 75 to 450 hectares) and there was a boom in construction, with new houses, towers, palaces, streets, squares, bridges, and churches. Marking the new urban geometry were the great churches of the new spirituality of the era: to the north, Santissima Annunziata dei Servi di Maria; to the south, Santo Spirito, the church of the Augustine monks, and the Carmelites’ Santa Maria del Carmine; to the west, Santa Maria Novella, the church of the Dominicans; and to the east, Santa Croce of the Franciscan friars. These new buildings became the points of reference for the social functions of the new civitas, promoting profound interchange and to some extent hybridising the lay and religious dimensions of the new centre. Understanding Florence starts here, in its homes and functional structures, the great “containers” of history and artistic works. One concrete example of this relationship between the city and its monuments is the monumental complex centring on the Basilica di Santa Croce. The church mixes art, spirituality, and civil history in a dimension that mirrors – and summarises – the character of the city, of which it is at once offspring and expression. Santa Croce is one of the great examples of Gothic architecture in Italy, and the world’s largest Franciscan church. It was built by

events

project

A new layout of the permanent exhibition of works by Pietro Parigi Starting in May, the spaces adjacent to the Cappella de’ Pazzi and the ancient cloister will inaugurate the new exhibition layout for the woodcuts by Pietro Parigi, the great cultural illustrator of 20th-century Florence. The same spaces will offer tools for interactive consultation of the works and theme-related explorations of the history of the entire Santa Croce complex.

“Nel nome di Michelangelo” (In the Name of Michelangelo) This project is launched in April this year with itineraries linking the Museo della Casa Buonarroti and the Santa Croce Monumental Complex. The two places have an important link in Michelangelo: from the masterpieces of the artist’s youth on exhibition in his family home, Casa Buonarroti, to his place of burial as Michelangelo had always wished in Santa Croce. This new initiative also gives value to the history of the Santa Croce quarter of the city with activities at both sites, to be scheduled over the course of the year.

public subscription during the Florentine Republic on the site of a small church raised by the friars in 1251 outside the city walls. Design of the new church (founded in 1294) was entrusted to Arnolfo di Cambio, the premiere architect of the time. With its soaring Gothic architecture, its cycles of frescoes, its altarpieces, its precious stained-glass windows, and its numerous sculptures, the Basilica binds together some of the most substantive pages in the history of Florentine art since 1200. It is home to works by Cimabue, Giotto, Maso di Banco, Giovanni da Milano, Brunelleschi, Michelozzo, Donatello, Domenico Veneziano, the Della Robbias, Benedetto da Maiano, Giuliano da San Gallo, Bronzino, Vasari, Canova, and others. Giotto and his school, in particular, make it an extraordinarily complete compendium of 14th century art. In the seven centuries since it was consecrated, the church has been redesigned and renovated many times, at each turn acquiring new symbolic values: from a Franciscan church to a religious edifice with civil functions for the great families and the guilds of the Florence of the Medici; from laboratory and artistic workshop to theological centre; from a pantheon of Italian glories to a point of reference, in the 19th century, for the political history of the new Italian nation. Santa Croce nurtures the roots of that culture and those values in which, when the Italian territory was unified, generations of Italians were shaped, trained, and educated. Defined by Foscolo as the “tempio delle itale glorie,” Santa Croce houses the tombs of many great personalities including Michelangelo, Galileo, Rossini, Foscolo, Machiavelli and Alfieri. For all these reasons, any “reading” of Santa Croce is an experience of travel through space and time: a journey on which, as we are propelled by nearly a millennium of chronicles and history, great works and great individuals are our ports of call. Giuseppe De Micheli Opera di Santa Croce Piazza Santa Croce open: Monday to Saturday 9.30-17.30; Sunday and holidays, 6 January 15 August, 1 November, 8 December 13.00-17.30 closed: 1 January, Easter Sunday, 13 June, 4 October, 25 December, 26 December A single ticket is valid for the entire Santa Croce Complex

www.santacroceopera.it Inklink

Cenacolo

The ancient refectory of the Convento di Santa Croce, dating to the first half of the 1300s, is a large rectangular room with a ceiling illuminated by two windows, ornamented with black and white painted strips. The back wall is occupied by Taddeo Gaddi’s 14thcentury fresco of the Last Supper, surmounted by the Crucifixion. On the side walls, The Stigmatisation of Saint Francis and three sacred stories on the theme of food, as is only proper for a room designed for dining. Used in the 1800s as a storehouse and becoming a museum on 2 November 1900, the refectory is now the heart of a much larger museum that numbers among its many masterpieces the gigantic Crucifix by Cimabue and fragments of the Triumph of Death and Hell by Andrea Orcagna.

In 1881 Florence’s Archaeological Museum was transferred to the 17thcentury Palazzo della Crocetta (built by Giulio Parigi for Cosimo II’s sister, Maria Maddalena de’ Medici) and in time it has acquired masterpieces from the Medici and Lorraine collections and fine examples of art from the Greek, Etruscan and Roman periods. The prestigious collection of large bronzes includes, for example, the famous Chimera, found near Arezzo in 1553, and the Orator, a bronze statue by the Etruscan sculptor, Aule Meteli. The collection of rare figured ceramics is equally prestigious and includes the large black figure François Vase (a large volute krater c. 570 B.C.). The Museum also has an important collection of marble sculptures and a group of rare Etruscan funerary artefacts, also extremely rare, with urns from the areas around Chiusi and Volterra and stone and marble tomb sculptures, including the famous painted Amazon sarcophagus (4th century B.C.). The neighbouring Egyptian Museum is also of great interest and in Italy is second only to the renowned collection in Turin. Adjacent to the Museum is a delightful garden which can be visited on Saturday mornings. Piazza Santissima Annunziata, 9/B open: Monday 14.00-19.00, Tuesday and Thursday 8.30-19.00, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday 8.30-14.00 closed: 1 January, 1 May, 15 August, 25 December

www.firenzemusei.it/archeologico news from the museum

events

The Chimera of Arezzo has returned from the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, Los Angeles, where it was displayed in an impressive exhibition dedicated to Etruscan art, an inaugural event of a project that will see the great bronzes of classical antiquity belonging to the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Firenze in many exhibitions.

conferences on the exhibition La moneta di Roma 18 March, 15 April, 20 May, 17 June 2010

Villa Corsini Villa Corsini, on the western outskirts of Florence in the Castello district, was purchased in 1697 by the Counsellor to the Grand Duke Cosimo III, Filippo Corsini. The renovation of the villa was entrusted to Giovan Battista Foggini. In 1968 the villa was donated to the Italian State, and since the end of the 1980s the Villa has housed a repository of archaeological pieces which came from the former Museo Topografico Centrale dell’Etruria, destroyed by the flood in 1966. The pieces are in store awaiting the new organisation of the National Archaeological Museum of Florence. Via della Petraia, 38 open: only on special occasions and on request

www.polomuseale.firenze .it/musei/villacorsini

Pagliazza Museum

In the historic Pagliazza tower, located in the centre of Florence, the museum houses archaeological artefacts found during the excavations carried out when the building was radically restored in the course of the 1980s. Ceramic items dating mainly from the 16th and 17th century are on display, while the first showcase exhibits a selection of earthenware fragments from the Roman period which were found in the oldest layer excavated. Piazza Sant’Elisabetta open: visits upon request

Around “Notti dell’Archeologia”, meetings with MAF and archaeological sites with “Archeologia Narrante”, an initiative in collaboration with Fondazione Toscana Spettacolo July 2010

Civic Archaeological Museum, Fiesole

Originally housed on the ground floor of Palazzo Pretorio, the Museum exhibits early historical, Etruscan, Roman and medieval artefacts which came to light during excavations in the area of Fiesole, as well as items donated by private collectors. As it began to grow in size, in 1914 the museum was transferred to a structure in the shape of an Ionic temple, designed by Ezio Cerpi and located inside the archaeological area. Reorganized in 1981, it also houses the Costantini Collection. Via Portigiani, 1, Fiesole open: from 1 to 31 October, from Wednesday to Monday 10.00-18.00; from 1 November to 28 February, from Thursday to Monday 10.0016.00; from 1 to 31 March, from Wednesday to Monday 10.00-18.00; from 1 April to 30 September, from Wednesday to Monday 10.00-19.00

www.fiesolemusei.it

exhibition Stilling. Fiesole Area e Museo Civico Archeologico, Fiesole 14 March to 30 August 2010

Sculptures by Günther Stilling, set in the archaeological park.

archaeological museums

National Archaeological Museum

Photographic exhibition India Magica. Umanità e paesaggi... colori dell’anima Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Firenze Curated by Anna Maria Romoli and Rino Sica 27 February-3 May 2010

La moneta di Roma Corridoio Mediceo del Museo Archeologico di Firenze until June

The “Paolo Graziosi” Florentine Museum and Institute of Prehistory

Located on the first floor of the historic Oblate Convent, the museum was created in 1946 by Gaetano Pieraccini, then mayor of Florence, and Paolo Graziosi an anthropologist and palaeontologist; the various collections of prehistoric artefacts scattered throughout the city were finally brought together for classification and conservation. Open to the public since 1975, the museum was completely renovated in 1998 when photographic and descriptive panels were added as well as workshops and a library consisting of about 3,000 volumes. Via Sant’Egidio, 21 open: Monday 14.00-17.00, Tuesday and Thursday 9.30-16.30, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday 9.30-12.30

www.museofiorentinopreistoria.it

TEATRO STUDIO DI SCANDICCI

EX3

EX3, Florence’s new Centre for Contemporary Art, is a dynamic exhibition centre, modelled on the German Kunsthalle. Exhibitions of national and international artists are held here while workshops, seminars and side events aim to promote interaction among the various forms of contemporary art. On show in the central room of EX3 until 11 April 2010 is the work of Eva Marisaldi, an artist from Bologna who observes individual and collective thought in the smallest gestures. The project emerges as a complex synchronous polyphony of texts, drawings and voices. The side rooms host works by “Taino Onorato & Nico Krebs”, the first exhibition dedicated to the couple to be held in Italy. Viale Giannotti, 81/83/85

www.ex3.it open: Wednesday to Saturday 11.00-19.00, Sunday 10.0-18.00

Directed by Giancarlo Cauteruccio and home to the Krypton Theatre Company, this centre is of fundamental importance for experimentation in the theatre arts. In a rich programme it hosts companies that wish to try out their productions and innovations on the stage, providing a full programme. In collaboration with various universities, theatre shows are held for children and the centre also organizes educational activities. In April (date to be decided) the national preview of the film “Craneway Event”, will be held here, a performance based on the collaboration of artist Tacita Dean and the choreographer Merce Cunningham. Until May, Teatro Studio presents “I linguaggi dell’arte” (the languages of art) which stimulates dialogue between local cultural institutions and artists working or temporarily resident in Tuscany. On Wednesday 7 April several of the artists represented in the show “Seven little mistakes”, held at the Marino Marini Museum, will join the discussions. Via Gaetano Donizetti, 58

www.scandiccicultura.it/teatro

MUSICUS CONCENTUS

in the now

Musicus Concentus provides a comprehensive overview of the most interesting musical developments currently taking place. For several years now Musicus Concentus has promoted both the new electronic music scene with its interdisciplinary relationships, as well as “club culture”. The concert season entitled “Tradizione In Movimento 2010” is of particular interest: on 28 March in the Sala Vanni is the duo of Lisa EVENTI Germano and Boybrain, the Radiohead drummer. The sixth edition of “Fosfeni” representing the new European electronic music scene will take place at the Città del Teatro, Cascina (Pisa) in April. Special events are the reunion of Cluster, with Han Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius on 19 March, and Alva Noto on 16 April.

A centre where art is both produced and exhibited, the aim of Villa Romana is to provide a space for artistic production which is independent from the official educational system financed by the state. Every year the centre provides hospitality for the four winners of the Villa Romana prize (awarded to artists resident in Germany), but the Villa also fulfils other functions: international artists are invited for short periods, workshops and symposiums are organised and a full programme of exhibitions and events dedicated to contemporary art is presented.

Piazza del Carmine, 19

www.musicusconcentus.com

TUSCAN REGIONAL “MEDIATECA”

The Mediateca is the centre for the promotion and diffusion of multimedia, audiovisual and cinematic arts in Tuscany and is equipped with audiovisual materials and study facilities. Thousands of classic films and documentaries are available for public consultation and the centre is also involved in the production of films and the promotion of cultural and educational initiatives. Particular attention is given to educational courses concerning the representation by the media of social unease and isolation. The Tuscan Regional Mediateca is a partner in all existing Tuscan cinema festivals and the multimedia newsletter on its website presents the events held in the Region on a daily basis. Via San Gallo, 25

www.mediatecatoscana.it Centro di Documentazione open: Tuesday to Friday 10.00-13.00, 14.00-17.00

VILLA ROMANA

in the

Via Senese, 68

www.villaromana.org

section curated by..............

with..................................................

TEMPO REALE

Founded by Luciano Berio in 1987, Tempo Reale is now one of the most important points of reference in Europe for research, production and education in the field of new technologies in music. Two important events are scheduled this spring: on 9 April, in collaboration with the “Fosfeni” Festival at the Città del Teatro in Cascina (Pisa), the “TransDadaExpress in space” concert with Alvin Curran & TR takes place on 13 and 14 May, at the Stazione Leopolda, David Moss will perform in his first Italian concert, “The table of earth”, in collaboration with the Fabbrica Europa Festival 2010. Villa Strozzi, via Pisana, 77

www.temporeale.it

The word “now” defines itself expressing an “immediacy” which a biannual paper cannot possibly follow especially when programmes are made and unmade at the last minute. We therefore refer you to each of the websites in these pages for a more detailed updating of events or to our website www.visitartfirenze.com.

PITTI IMMAGINE DISCOVERY FOUNDATION

The Pitti Immagine Discovery Foundation promotes exhibitions and editorial projects which bring together fashion, the visual arts, cinema, photography, advertising, architecture and music. Created in 2002 with the fusion of Pitti Immagine and the Florence Centre for Italian Fashion, the Foundation draws on the varied international artistic scene to stimulate events and research based on the social aspects and customs, the economic trends and innovative artistic phenomena from which fashion evolves.

FONDAZIONE NIELS STENSEN

Managed by Jesuit Fathers with the intent of stimulating intercultural dialogues through seminars, exhibitions, film. Viale Don Minzoni, 25/g

www.stensen.org

SWITCH Creative Social Network

Association of artists, musicians, curators and activists united to promote urban creativity Via Scipio Slataper, 2

www.switchproject.net

Via Faenza, 111

www.pittimmagine.com

BASE

Via San Niccolò, 18r

www.baseitaly.org

now Alberto Salvadori

................

Gabriele Ametrano

.............. ...

Fabbrica Europa is a cultural project created in 1994 by Maurizia Settembri and Andres Morte Terés with the aim of presenting the contemporary arts in Florence and introducing the foremost innovators of today. The 2010 edition is entitled “Europe, the Mediterranean and the Orient” and will take place from 6-25 May in the Stazione Leopolda and in other locations throughout the city. The programme includes theatre performances, concerts, dance, workshops and debates. Borgo degli Albizi, 15

www.ffeac.org

STUDIO MARANGONI FOUNDATION

The Studio Marangoni Foundation is a centre dedicated to contemporary photography. The art and teaching of photography is promoted through courses, workshops and conferences. In addition to these educational activities it organizes exhibitions in Italy and abroad. The exhibition centre in Florence maintains a dynamic programme of events. Via San Zanobi, 32r

www.studiomarangoni.it

THE MURATE

Florence’s former prison is now the new centre for the contemporary arts, where innovation and international projects take form. Following renovation of the building, the structure has taken on a new and creative life, housing a bar, shops and now also the home of some “Smart Dissidents”, new generation political activists and bloggers who use internet as their means of communication. The SUC (Contemporary Urban Spaces) is also based at the Murate, a permanent ongoing workshop of creativity and the Florentine fulcrum for the visual arts, music, theatre and performance, also embracing fashion, botany and cookery. Piazza Madonna delle Neve

www.lemurate.comune.fi.it/lemurate

CANTIERI GOLDONETTA

in the now

The most important artistic developments on the Italian and international scene are presented at the Base Gallery. Lovers of contemporary art meet and exchange news and ideas in this non-profit gallery, created by a group of Florentine artists in 1998. Base is also a cultural association and collaborates with other groups to present interesting programmes and events the year round.

FABBRICA EUROPA FOUNDATION FOR THE CONTEMPORARY ARTS

Cantieri Goldonetta (Cango) is a centre dedicated to the various forms of physical expression. Under the direction of Virgilio Sieni, the centre organizes events as well as offering residencies and studio space. Cango is also the home of the “Accademia sull’arte del gesto” where dance and the communication of movement are studied and taught. Organised by the Cantieri Goldonetta, the Oltrarno Atelier Festival is a cultural event which takes place in June. From 11 March until 4 April, the choreographer Shen Wei directs an educational project involving an artistic exchange with students to explain his complex vision of the art. From 20-30 April the MK company, an independent group involved with performance art and the study of sound, is resident at the Cango centre. Via Santa Maria, 23-25

www.cango.fi.it

These pages are a re-elaboration of

Diagramma Albero, a work by the artist

Eva Marisaldi, recently on show at EX3 (March-April 2010). Our thanks go to the artist for allowing us to use it.

in the now

Alla maniera dʼoggi. Base a Firenze otto artisti contemporanei in un percorso storico-museale

The Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci in Prato presents a show curated by Marco Bazzini aimed at creating a dialogue between some of the most important venues within the Florence Museum area and Tuscan artistic production over recent decades. The invited artists – Mario Airò, Marco Curated by Bagnoli, Massimo Bartolini, Paolo Masi, Marco Bazzini The purpose of the Centro Pecci is to interpret Massimo Nannucci, Maurizio Nannucci, and display the cutting edge in international Paolo Parisi, Remo Salvadori – use 3 February-11 April 2010 contemporary art. In addition to its permanent contemporary language to interpret various venues, Florence collection, the Pecci houses temporary exhibitions, famous historical or museum spaces, workshops and events. In 2010 the exhibitions Marco Bagnoli creating a path that overrides any time spaces are to be enlarged. Basilica di San Miniato gap between the venue and their Monday-Saturday 8.00-12.00 and 14.00-19.00, Viale della Repubblica, 277, Prato intervention, connecting the “old” and the holidays 8.00-9.00 www.centropecci.it “new” within the same line of sight. Remo Salvadori Alla maniera d’oggi. Base a Firenze hence draws Colonna di S. Zanobi Piazza S. Giovanni a double inspiration, as clearly stated in its title. It 24 h/24 h refers to the famous phrase used by Vasari in his Lives to indicate the innovations in artistic language carried Paolo Parisi Chiostro dello Scalzo out by the painters of Renaissance Florence, Monday and Thursday 8.15-13.50 and as such is a reminder of how art has Massimo Nannucci always been a central element in the from 20 March Paolo Canevari Cenacolo d’Ognissanti city’s identity, often in terms of a Monday and Tuesday 9.00-12.00 The work of Paolo Canevari is linked to a reflection on departure from tradition. The title the impermanence of art, on the significance of sculpture and Massimo Bartolini is also a homage to the on how this fits in relation to the contemporary social context. Galleria dell’Accademia outstanding commitment to the Canevari has developed a personal language intent on a revisit of the Tuesday-Sunday 8.15-18.50 promotion of contemporary art quotidian and the most intimate aspects of memory. Maurizio Nannucci shown by the “base/progetti Galleria degli Uffizi from 29 May Tom Puckey & Jan Van der Ploeg per l’arte” association, an art 24h/24h A project designed for the exhibition spaces on the ground floor of the Pecci, collective active since 1998 sets the figurative and intimately estranged sculpture of the Dutch artist Mario Airò, Paolo Masi and including today the Museo di San Marco Thom Puckey, against the mural painting developed through chromatic Monday-Friday 8.15-13.50, artists in the show, who all combinations by another Dutch artist, Jan van der Ploeg. Saturday and Sunday 8.15-16.50 live in Tuscany and are from 1 to 22 July Italian Genius Now-Casa Dolce Casa presented in Florence as Marco Bagnoli Curated by Marco Bazzini Palazzo Sacrati Strozzi representatives of today’s art.

CENTRO PER L’ARTE CONTEMPORANEA LUIGI PECCI

calendar

entry restricted

VILLA LA MAGIA

Following the success of the travelling exhibition, Italian Genius Now, on Italian art and design from 1950 to 2000, the project has taken off again with a look at Italian art and design from 2000 to today. This exhibtion grew out of being chosen to represent Italian contemporary art in the Padiglione Italia during the Shangai 2010/Better City for Better Life Expo, and with it the Pecci presents the most contemporary and least expected side of the Tuscan region.

Set in an Italian garden, this permanent collection winesses the continuity between the past and contemporary art at Villa La Magia, the “La Limonaia di Ponente” art centre. There are seven installations to visit, works by Nagasawa, Marco Bagnoli, Anne e Patrick Poirier, Fabrizio Corneli, Federico Gori e Gerardo Paoletti.

PALAZZO FABRONI PREMIO TOSCANA CONTEMPORANEA first year

Collezione permanente dedicata agli artisti del primo dopoguerra, con maggiore attenzione alle personalità che negli anni sessanta hanno rinnovato il linguaggio artistico.

Promoted by EX3 and the Pecci, the prize intends to reward the work of artists under 40, either Tuscan by birth or residency. The finalists will be judged by an international jury and the winner will show his or her work in an exhibtion at EX3 which begins on 30 April and which will also show the work of the other finalists.

Via Sant’Andrea, 18, Pistoia

Via Vecchia Fiorentina 63, Quarrata (Pistoia)

www.villalamagia.it

COLLEZIONE GORI Over seventy installations by international artists created in a romantic park and in the adjacent olive grove of the Tenuta di Celle. The Gori collection is an open-air gallery, a workshop for production and experimentation in the languages of the contemporary in multiple disciplines. Tenuta di Celle Via Montalese 7, Santomato (Pistoia)

www.goricoll.it

SMS CONTEMPORANEA Santa Maria della Scala Museum Complex

A centre for contemporary art that periodically shows international artists. Until 6 June, the exhibition “Lux umbrae”, works in light and shadow by Adalberto Mecarelli, curated by Marco Pierini, is on at the Museo Archeologico. Piazza Duomo, 2, Siena

civic museums Rinaldo Carnielo Gallery

Palazzo Vecchio has been at the heart of Florence’s political life for more than seven centuries and is the monument which best symbolises the city. It was built in 1299 as the seat of the standard bearer and ‘priore’ and became a ducal residence in the mid-16th century when Cosimo de’ Medici moved his family and his court there. When Florence became the capital of the new kingdom of Italy in 1865, the Chamber of Deputies was housed in the Palazzo and it is now the seat of Florence’s city council. The history of the building is reflected in the magnificent apartments and chambers that now form the museum – a series of courtyards, halls and private rooms sumptuously decorated by some of the most famous artists of the Renaissance, and enhanced with furnishings of the period. Giorgio Vasari was responsible for the present appearance of the Michelozzo courtyard, the “Salone dei Cinquecento”, the Apartments of Leo X and of Eleonora de Toledo, and the “Sala degli Elementi”, converting the austere medieval building into one more suited to the pomp and convenience of the Medici court. The works of many other famous artists are also housed in Palazzo Vecchio: such as Domenico del Ghirlandaio in the “Sala dei Gigli”, Francesco Salviati in the “Sala dell’Udienza” and Agnolo Bronzino in Eleonora’s splendid chapel. Lastly, the “Mezzanino” houses a fine collection of medieval and Renaissance works donated by the American collector, Charles Loeser. Piazza della Signoria open: everyday 9.00-19.00, Thursdays and mid-week holidays 9.00-14.00 closed: 1 January, Easter, 1 May, 15 August, 25 December

www.museicivicifiorentini.it/palazzovecchio

20th-Century Collections

Not to be missed

works on loan

Original sculptural works on display include the Putto by Verrocchio, Judith by Donatello and the famous Victory by Michelangelo. In the “Sala delle Carte Geografiche” (Map Room) an enormous globe and a series of unique painted panels provide a fascinating view of the known world in the 16th century.

• Giovanni Della Robbia, Madonna con il Bambino, terracotta in: Terni, CAOS - Centro per le Arti Opificio ex Siri for the exhibition: Piermatteo D’Amelia. Un protagonista del Rinascimento tra Firenze e Roma until 2 May 2010

Rinaldo Carnielo (Biadene, Treviso, 1853-Firenze 1910) was a fine sculptor of commemorative statues in the late 19th century and his former home and studio are now a museum housing over three hundred of his works and some paintings by artists who were his contemporaries, such as Silvestro Lega, Michele Gordigiani and Arturo Calosci.

The collections now housed in the “palazzina” of Forte di Belvedere constitute an excellent anthology of Italian art from the 1930s to shortly after the Second World War. Housed here temporarily until the planned “Museo del Novecento” is ready are the Alberto Della Ragione Collection, Fei-Rosai Donation and the Palazzeschi Donation.

Piazza Savonarola, 3 Temporarily closed to the public

Forte di Belvedere Via San Leonardo, 1 Temporarily closed to the public

www.museicivicifiorentini.it /carnielo

Palazzo Vecchio

www.museicivicifiorentini.it /novecento

Salvatore Romano

Foundation The Museum is located in the historic refectory of the monastery of Santo Spirito. This highly original building provides the perfect setting for the valuable collection of sculptures, architectural fragments and wall paintings, mainly medieval, donated to Florence city council in 1946 by Salvatore Romano, an antiquarian who designed the arrangement of the museum and is himself buried here. Piazza Santo Spirito, 29 open: Saturday, from April to October 9.00-17.00, from November to March 10.30-13.30 closed: 1 January, Easter, 1 May, 15 August, 25 December

www.museicivicifiorentini.it /romano

Santa Maria Novella Museum

The Museum is housed in the monastery of Santa Maria Novella, the cloisters of which are decorated with exceptional 14th- and 15th-century Florentine paintings, and includes the Spanish Chapel and the old Refectory. Piazza Santa Maria Novella open: Monday to Thursday and Saturday 9.00-17.00; mid-week holidays 9.00-14.00 closed: 1 January, Easter, 1 May, 15 August, 25 December

www.museicivicifiorentini.it/sm works on loan • Mariano d’Agnolo Romanelli (?), Busto di una compagna di Sant’Orsola; • Late XIV century Florentine Sculptor, Busto di Sant’Orsola in: Siena, Santa Maria della Scala Museum Complex for the exhibition: Da Jacopo della Quercia a Donatello. Le arti del primo Rinascimento a Siena until 11 July 2010

civic museums

Stefano Bardini Museum

The Museum is named after its creator, Stefano Bardini (1854-1922), a highly authoritative Italian antiquarian but also a famous restorer of works of art and architecture, an avant-garde photographer and a collector. After working for many years as a dealer in the antique business, he decided to turn his own collection into a museum and donated it to the city of Florence. The building where the museum is located was bought by Bardini in 1881 to house his antiques’ business. He made various structural alterations and used authentic items such as gables, door frames and staircases to transform the original building into a delightful neo-Renaissance palace. Some of the features he used in the decoration of his museum, such as the blue painted walls of the interiors, were widely copied, for example by the Jacquemart-André Museum in Paris and by Isabella Stewart Gardner in Boston. With fortunate intuition, Bardini rediscovered Renaissance architectural decoration, stucco and terracotta elements, antique oriental carpets and Venetian bronzes. The recent renovation entirely reflects the character of the collection as it was when Bardini left it to the city of Florence in 1922. Via dei Renai, 37 open: Saturday, Sunday, Monday 11.00-17.00 closed: Tuesday to Friday, 1 January, Easter Sunday, 1 May, 15 August, 25 December

www.museicivicifiorentini.it/bardini

Event

The return of the Porcellino In May, the Bardini Museum celebrates the return of the so-called Porcellino, with its original base, from the workshops of the Opificio delle Pietre Dure where it has been restored.

Museo di “Firenze com’era”

The Museum houses a collection of paintings, prints and models providing unique documentation on the history of Florence’s urban development from the Renaissance to the end of the 19th century. The Veduta della Catena is a famous image representing the city, its streets and buildings about 1470. One of the most interesting items in the cartography collection is the map dated 1594 made by Stefano Buonsignori. Important prints provide documentation of the city in the 1600s and 1700s, in particular those by Giuseppe Zocchi illustrating the squares and best known monuments of Florence. Changes to the city’s topography that took place during the 1800s are recorded in the plans drawn up by Federico Fantozzi and the paintings by Nino Della Gatta and Augusto Marrani showing the Old Market and the Jewish Ghetto before they were demolished. Archaeological items found during the 19th-century excavations in the historic centre are exhibited alongside these sections. works on loan • Giuseppe Ghepardi, Fontana alle Cascine; in: Rome, Museo Napoleonico for the exhibition: Charlotte Bonaparte. Dama di molto spirito. Ritratto di una principessa artista. until 18 April 2010

Via dell’Oriuolo, 24 open: from 2 January to 31 May and from 1 October to 31 December, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday 9.00-14.00, Saturday 9.00-19.00; from 1 June to 30 September, Monday and Tuesday 9.00-14.00, Saturday 9.00-19.00 closed: 1 January, Easter, 1 May, 15 August, 25 December

www.museicivicifiorentini.it/firenzecomera

Stefano Bardini Museum

Rinascimento a Siena until 11 July 2010

Not to be missed: The Bardini Museum houses more than two thousand items including sculpture, painting and the applied arts, dating from antiquity to the 18th century; most of the items are from the medieval and Renaissance periods, however. Some of the finest are Tino da Camaino’s Charity, the Madonna dei Cordai by Donatello, St Michael Archangel by Antonio del Pollaiolo, the Atlas by Guercino, the collections of medallions, bronzes, oriental carpets, splendid 15th-century marriage chests and the small but precious armoury. Some monuments of importance in the history of Florence, such as the famous Porcellino, Pietro Tacca’s bronze sculpture of a boar, are exhibited in the museum.

• helmet crest, leather and painted mail in: Milan, Palazzo Reale, for the exhibition: L’anima del fuoco until 2 May 2010

works on loan • Donatello, Madonna col Bambino (called Madonna dei Cordai); • copy from Donatello, Madonna tipo Piccolomini; • Urbano da Cortona (attr.), Funerary Plate of a Franciscan monk • Taddeo di Bartolo, banner with coat of arms and crest in: Siena, Santa Maria della Scala Museum Complex for the exhibition: Da Jacopo della Quercia a Donatello. Le arti del primo

• woman’s shoe in worked velvet and leather in: Toronto, The Bata Shoe Museum for the exhibition: On a Pedestal: from Renaissance Chopines to the Baroque Heels until 2 September 2010 • Giovanni Paolo Cavagna, Ritratto di Cavaliere di Malta in: Turin, Reggia di Venaria Reale, for the exhibition: Dai Templari a Napoleone until 11 April 2010 • Desiderio da Settignano, Gesù Bambino benedicente in: Terni, CAOS - Centro per le Arti Opificio ex Siri for the exhibition: Piermatteo D’Amelia. Un protagonista del Rinascimento tra Firenze e Roma until 2 May 2010

new publications T. Rago, I Bronzetti e gli oggetti d’uso in bronzo, Firenze, Centro Di, 2009 V. Niemeyer Chini, Stefano Bardini e Wilhlem Bode. Mercanti e Connoisseurs fra Ottocento e Novecento, Firenze, Polistampa, 2009

fondazione palazzo strozzi

ituated between Piazza Strozzi and Via Tornabuoni in the heart of Florence, the Palazzo Strozzi is one of the finest examples of Renaissance architecture. It was commissioned by the Florentine merchant Filippo Strozzi and the foundations were laid in 1489 according to a design perhaps by Benedetto da Maiano. The Palazzo was finished in 1538. It remained the property of the Strozzi family until 1937, and since 1999 it has been managed by the City of Florence. Since the Second World War the Palazzo has been Florence’s largest temporary exhibition space. In April 2006 the City of Florence, the Province, the Chamber of Commerce and an association of private partners joined forces to create the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi with the task of managing the public spaces of the Palazzo. The Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi represents an innovation in the governance of Italian cultural institutions. The key challenge of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi is to bring an international approach to making culture in Florence, to provide a platform for experimentation, to create a place for debate and discussion, to create new synergies with other cultural players and to be a catalyst for culture – in short, to ‘think global, act local’. The Palazzo Strozzi hosts three major exhibitions annually, and is open year-round with a café/bar, and a permanent exhibition on the history of the Palazzo Strozzi. In November 2007 the spaces under the courtyard were re-opened as the Centre for Contemporary Culture Strozzina (CCCS) which hosts a wide variety of activities including exhibitions, events, lectures and programmes designed to appeal to a broad spectrum of users of all ages, nationalities and backgrounds. The CCCS’s activities focus deliberately on artistic exploration as conducted in recent years, giving priority to multimedia vocabulary and to art forms designed to interact with their audience. Every CCCS exhibition is enriched by a calendar of free lectures and events open to the public. Experts and university lecturers from different disciplines and working environments are invited to talk on issues connected with the exhibition. Every Thursday from 18.00 to 23.00, entrance to the CCCS Gallery is free of charge. The weekly lecture programme is open to the public.

Piazza Strozzi

www.palazzostrozzi.org

calendar of exhibitions april-september 2010

Gerhard Richter and the Disappearance of the Image in Contemporary Art

De Chirico, Max Ernst, Magritte, Balthus. A Look into the invisible

As Soon As Possible – Time and Social Acceleration

Curated by Franziska Nori and Hubertus Gassner 20 February-25 April 2010

curators: Paolo Baldacci, Guido Magnaguagno, Gerd Roos 26 February-18 July 2010

The exhibition addresses the theme of time in our so-called “high-speed society”, a lifestyle characterised by rapid communications and production methods dictated by the opportunities offered by new technologies with which everyone has no choice but to relate and to react in today’s world. The project for the exhibition comprises work by such Italian and international artists as Datenstrudel, Marnix de Nijs, Reynold Reynolds, Jens Risch, Michael Sailstorfer, Arcangelo Sassolino and Tamy Ben-Tor.

Gerhard Richter, one of the pioneers in practicing the dissolution of both the motif and the medium to the extreme, paints over his original pictures or uses a blurred painting technique. The CCCS has invited seven contemporary artists Anthony Gormley, Roger Hiorns, Marc Breslin, Scott Short, Xie Nanxing, Lorenzo Banci, and Wolfgang Tillmans who also focus on the theme of the dissolution of the image to engage in a dialogue with Richter’s work.

Taking as its starting point the fundamental exhibition organised in Zurich, Berlin and Munich in 1997-1998, Boecklin, De Chirico, Ernst. Eine Reise ins Ungewisse and the essays written by Wieland Schmied and David Sylvester towards the end of the Seventies, this exhibition explores the early years of the career of De Chirico and the influence of his first works on movements such as Surrealism and the Neue Sachlichkeit.

13 May-18 July 2010

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marino marini museum

he Museo Marino Marini is the first city museum devoted to contemporary art. Founded in 1998, the museum houses the collection of Marino Marini’s (19011980) own works, exhibits devoted to contemporary art and culture, and indepth learning and training activities. Directed by Alberto Salvadori, the museum’s cultural programme is rich and varied, centred mainly on contemporary life in all its manifestations, and our representations of it. Among the museum’s prime objectives are to highlight the personality and works of the 20th-century artist Marino Marini and to use the museum spaces for unique events that gather together and inspire the public. In this space, the contemporary explores relationships between different modes of expression in an ongoing dialogue between past and present.

Piazza San Pancrazio open: Monday 10.00-17.00, Wednesday to Saturday 10.00-17.00

www.museomarinomarini.it

calendar of exhibitions april-september 2010

Corpi da musica. Vita e teatro di Sylvano Bussotti Curated by Luca Scarlini until 22 March 2010 A vast selection of the artist’s graphic works, many on show to the public for the first time. During the exhibition, the mood in the museum spaces will be set by musical pieces composed and selected by Maestro Bussotti himself. The works and music are accompanied by a series of mises-en-scène, meetings, presentations and shows, and concerts and projections that draw on the various “actors” involved in the “Firenze per Bussotti” project supported by the OAC (Osservatorio per le Arti Contemporanee – Observatory on Contemporary Arts) sponsored by the Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze.

Seven Little Mistakes

Storia del Cappello

Curated by Stefano Collicelli Cagol and Alberto Salvadori 9 April-7 June 2010

15 June-late July 2010

A collective show by artists of international repute: works representative of the new modes of expression of the contemporary.

The origins, creative evolution, and contemporary manifestations of the hat, in an original exhibition layout.

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medici villas

Villa Medicea di Poggio a Caiano

The villa was built by Lorenzo the Magnificent to a plan by Giuliano da Sangallo, at the foot of the Albano hills, beautifully situated in a large estate between Florence, Prato and Pistoia. The villa has a portico on each side, facing the garden and the surrounding countryside, and reflects the humanist trends in architecture inspired by classical antiquity. Building was begun around 1485 but was interrupted at Lorenzo’s death in 1492. Work continued under pope Leo X, son of Lorenzo, and the villa was finally completed in the second half of the 16th century. The Salone, named after Leo X, is splendidly decorated with allegorical frescoes celebrating the Medici family, painted by Andrea del Sarto, Pontormo, Franciabigio and Alessandro Allori. Piazza Medici, 14, Poggio a Caiano open: everyday in January, February, November, December 8.15-16.30, in March 8.15-17.30 (official summer time 18.30), in April, May, September 8.15-18.30, in June, July, August 8.15-19.30, in October 8.15-18.30 (end of official summer time 17.30) closed: 2nd and 3rd Monday of each month, 1 January, 1 May, 25 December

www.polomuseale.firenze.it/musei/poggiocaiano

Museo della Natura Morta (Still Life Museum)

On 17 June 2007 a museum unique of its kind in Italy opened on the second floor of the Medici Villa at Poggio a Caiano. The first Still Life Museum exhibits around two hundred paintings focusing on this genre, dating from the 16th to the 18th century and belonging to the Medici collections. To visit the Museo della Natura Morta reservations are required and can be made by telephone on 055-877012. opening hours: every day, January and February 9.0010.00, 11.00-12.00, 14.00-15.00; March 9.00-10.00, 11.00-16.00; April, May, September and October 9.0010.00, 11.00-17.00; June, July and August, 9.00-10.00, 11.00-18.00; November and December, 9.00-10.00, 11.00-15.00. Closed: 2nd and 3rd Monday of the month, 1 January, 1 May, 25 December

Villa Medici at Cerreto Guidi

Villa Medici at Petraia

Built in a panoramic position above Florence, the Villa Medicea at Petraia is one of the loveliest and most famous of the Medici Villas. The monument is of particular interest, both for its decorative style and for the late 19th-century furniture exhibited in the rooms. Via della Petraia, 40, Castello Oopen: in November, December, January, February 8.1516.30, in March 8.15-17.30, in April, May, September and October 8.15-18.30, in June, July, August 8.15-18.50 closed: 2nd and 3rd Monday of the month

www.polomuseale.firenze.it/musei/petraia

Villa Medici at Castello

The Medici Villa at Castello is one of the oldest suburban residences of the Medici family who acquired it in 1477. The superb terraced garden, considered by Vasari to be one of the most magnificent in Europe, was commissioned from Niccolò Tribolo by Cosimo I about 1540. The villa is not currently open to the public. The antique and Renaissance sculptures lend a theatrical aura to the garden which can, however, be visited. Via di Castello, 47, Castello open: in November, December, January, February 8.1516.30, in March 8.15-17.30, in April, May, September and October 8.15-18.30, in June, July, August 8.15-18.50 closed: 2nd and 3rd Monday of the month

www.polomuseale.firenze.it/musei/villacastello

The villa was built for Cosimo I de’ Medici in 1556 as a hunting residence and garrison for the area. It became a museum in 1978 and houses furniture and portraits of members of the Medici family during the 16th and 17th centuries, most of which were previously kept in storage in various Florentine museums. Since September 2002 the first floor of the villa has housed a Historic Museum of Hunting and the Countryside, with an interesting collection of arms, mainly for hunting and shooting. Via dei Ponti Medicei, 7, Cerreto Guidi open: everyday, 8.15-18.50 closed: 2nd and 3rd Monday of the month

www.polomuseale.firenze.it/musei/cerretoguidi

exhibition Per utilità e per diletto. “Cittadini” in Villa Villa Medicea di Cerreto Guidi Curated by Giovanna Damiani 2 July-3 October 2010 From July to October, an exhibition dedicated to “living in the villa”. The exhibition looks back over the centuries, paying particular attention to the period from the 16th to the 19th century, from humanism to the post-unification period.

In his will Rodolfo Siviero, who died in 1983, donated his house with its furnishings to the Regione Toscana. An enthusiastic collector, Siviero came to be known as the “James Bond of the art world” for his important contribution in ensuring that many of the works of art stolen during the Nazi occupation were returned to Italy. His personal collection is displayed on the ground floor of the villa (designed by Poggi), on the Lungarno where Siviero lived for many years and it fully reflects the owner’s personality. Siviero had a large collection of antique works of art, including 14th- and 15thcentury wood statues, Renaissance and Baroque paintings, magnificent furnishings and a group of works by important contemporary Italian artists such as De Chirico, Manzù, Soffici and Annigoni, all of whom were personal friends. Exhibitions and other cultural events are also held in the museum. Lungarno Serristori, 1-3 open: Saturday, from October to May 10.00-18.00, from June to September 10.00-14.00 and 15.00-19.00; Sunday and Monday, all year 10.00-13.00 closed: 1 January, 1 May, 24 June, 15 August, 25-26 December, all holidays that do not occur on Saturdays, Sundays or Mondays

Casa Guidi In the mid-19th century, this apartment on the first floor of Palazzo Guidi, located on Piazza San Felice at one end of Via Maggio, was the residence of the celebrated English poets Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Today, it is a museum open to the public, thanks to restructuring and renovation, based on period photographs and descriptions, that has been underway since 1971, when the palace was purchased by the Browning Institute of New York. Even the furnishings are often original: some of the furniture purchased by the couple has been used to decorate four rooms; the majority of the paintings and furniture they used in their home in Via Maggio was purchased from Florentine rigattieri (“second hand dealers,” but traditionally much more). The Institute’s aim was to recreate a real home, with a lived-in air, and the effort to maintain the original atmosphere has extended even to everyday small objects and utensils. Piazza San Felice, 8 open: from 1 April to 30 November, Monday, Wednesday, Friday 15.00-18.00

www.museocasasiviero.it

Martelli House Museum Palazzo Martelli is a historic building which remained the property of the family until 1986, became a state museum in 1999 and opened to the public on 22 October 2009. Bankers allied to the Medici family, the Martelli first bought a property in Via Zannetti in the early 16th century. As early as the 17th century the first floor was organised to house a collection of art, and the gallery has maintained its original arrangement. This museum are therefore not a post-factum reconstruction by a collector, but a genuine example of the lives of a family over the course of several centuries. Via Zannetti, 8 open: Thursday afternoons and Saturday mornings by appointment

www.polomuseale.firenze.it/musei /casamartelli

event Vittoriani ed Anglofiorentini: weekend culturale a Casa Guidi 17-18 April On 17 April, Professor Gigliola Sacerdoti Mariani of the University of Florence presents the volume Il Vittorianesimo, edited by Franco Marucci. Dr. Marucci, Professor of English Literature at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, is one of Italy’s foremost experts in English studies. On Sunday, 18 April, Dr. Sirpa Salenius, scholar of the 19th-century Anglo-Florentine community, treats the public to a “guided tour” of Casa Guidi.

House of Dante

1865 was a memorable year for Florence – the city became the capital of the newly united state of Italy and in the same year it celebrated the six-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Dante. It was in this year that, in the session held on 4 February, the city council decided to buy the house of the Divine Poet, a building located opposite the Torre di Castagna near to the church of San Martino. However, it was not until 1911 that the structure we see today was designed by the architect Giuseppe Castellucci who reproduced a rather quaint medieval style which the great Dante scholar Vittorio Sermonti described as “the most authentic of historic fakes”. Arranged according to contemporary criteria, the museum is mainly educational in content and the works displayed reflect the life and times of the supreme poet, describing the history of his family, his exile and the city of Florence during the 13th century. Via Santa Margherita, 1 open: from October to March, TuesdaySunday 10.00-17.00; from April to September, every day 10.00-18.00

www.museocasadidante.it

Palazzo Davanzati

house museums

Rodolfo Siviero House Museum

The museum is housed in a splendid building, an almost unique example of a typical 14th-century Florentine house, which developed out of the medieval tower and preceded the appearance of the Renaissance palace. Built in the mid 14th century by the Davizzi family, during the 16th century it passed to the Bartolini and then in 1578 to the Davanzati who owned it until the late 1800s. In 1904 it was bought by an antique dealer named Volpi who restored the palace and furnished it with items from his collection. The Palazzo changed hands several times until it was bought by the Italian state in 1951 and opened to the public in 1956. The museum is of particular interest for the design of the interior and the rare wall decorations, which include geometric designs typical of 14th-century houses. The furnishings, paintings, tapestries and items of everyday use effectively recreate the interior of a noble Florentine house as it would have been from the 14th to the 17th century. There are also numerous paintings with secular and religious subjects including the tryptych of a Madonna with Child and Saints by Lorenzo Monaco, dated 1410, the 13thcentury tondo decorated with the Gioco del Civettino (Game of the Fop) by the “Maestro del Cassone Adimari”, and Joseph Imprisoned by Francesco Granacci. Sculptures include Antonio Rossellino’s Bust of a young man, and two busts of emperors in the style of Della Robbia. Also of great interest is the collection of ceramics and majolica dating from the 14th to the 18th century. Via Porta Rossa, 13 open: Monday to Sunday 8.15-13.50 closed: 2nd and 4th Sunday and 1st, 3rd, 5th Monday of each month, 1 January, 1 May, 25 December

www.polomuseale.firenze.it/ musei/davanzati

correspondence conversations on Florence with people from elsewhere

curated by Maria de Peverelli

This section is the only portion of ‘VisitArt’ that expresses opinions, and – by choice – the only opinions that will be published here will be those offered by authoritative figures, the majority of them foreign, who have a close relationship with Florence. This correspondence with the city will take various forms and features in different issues: interviews, articles, letters, opinion pieces, both critical and sympathetic, but always aimed at opening up a discussion on the themes of the city. ‘VisitArt’ welcomes contributions to this section and will evaluate all pieces submitted for publication.

insideout

For this first issue, we have put sideby-side the purely emotional responses of two people who live and perceive Florence using diferent modes of interpretation: one an ‘emigrant’, who is Florentine by birth but has lived abroad for 25 years, and the other an ‘immigrant’, Canadian by birth, who grew up in England, a European citizen and who is now strongly tied to the Florentine world. Two opinions, two emotional reactions, two portraits, different yes, but nourished and enlightened by a common feeling.

James Bradburne

inside

an Anglo-Canadian architect who has worked for various cultural institutions in the world and is now the Director General of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi

consider myself to be in an extremely privileged position. On the one hand, I live in Florence’s historical centre. Right inside. As I cycle to work every morning I pass the towers of the Bargello, Palazzo Vecchio and the Badia Fiorentina, and catch a glimpse of the Duomo. Who could ask for more than to wake up every morning in such a city. And it gets better – I have the privilege (and the pleasure) of being the Director General of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, a dynamic cultural centre in the heart of Florence. On the other hand, I am also a foreigner. Born in Canada, educated in England, I have been working in cultural institutions throughout Europe – London, Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt – for over twentyfive years. As I have long since lost any nostalgia I might have had for the country of my birth, wherever I am, I am an outsider. So how does Florence appear from the outsider in, or the insider out? From the outside, Florence is a single, glorious whole. You cannot help but be influenced by the urban landscape. The closeness of the buildings speaks of the importance of the human scale, the need for commerce – material and intellectual – and the value of exchange. Even the largest, most imposing buildings, such as the Palazzo Strozzi, have large stone seats running around their perimeter, inviting Florence’s passers-by to sit for a moment to rest their feet tired by shopping, to put their bags down for a moment, perhaps to chat. The buildings themselves – the physical trace of what was once the intellectual and commercial centre of the Western World – still remind us of the civic values and the civil strife that were their causes. No matter that the streets are now lined with stores selling luxury brands – riches in Florence are still counted in culture, not cash. From the inside, Florence is a city undergoing quiet revolution. Mass tourism – ‘Pullman tourism’ as it called in Italy, after the lumbering tour buses that drive from Rome to Florence for the afternoon, heading north towards Venice at nightfall – poses a major paradox for Florence. In earlier days, when tourism was a less rushed affair, tourists would stay at local pensioni, study the art in the local museums, and enjoy the local cuisine. Importantly, they would leave their cash behind as they paid for experiences and services. Mass tourism has altered the ecology of past decades by pumping the city full of tourists who don’t stay the night, who gobble a panino from a street vendor and queue for hours to cram themselves inside the Uffizi or the Accademia, and whose tastes in souvenirs tends towards plaster reproductions of David’s private parts. These tourists wear out the city’s infrastructure and make it less and less pleasant for serious cultural tourists to commune with the genius loci of the birthplace of the Renaissance. Moreover, they don’t contribute much to the city’s coffers – which means that Florence is fighting a losing battle to keep its streets repaired and its museums funded. One of the many challenges we all face in Florence today is to bring its many selves into a single coherent whole. This does not mean forging a homogeneous identity – such a thing would probably be both impossible and undesirable – Florence’s identity has always come from its diversity. Florence is a contemporary city – and being contemporary is how we are, not how things are. It is not a specific content or project or museum that makes a city contemporary, it is the people themselves. After all, all art is contemporary in the moment of its creation, and begins to age immediately. Michelangelo’s wildly Mannerist Laurentian Library is now seen as a classic of Renaissance architecture. Today’s Florence is clearly able to sustain and support initiatives that reflect a contemporary awareness of the changing world we live in. In this we all – insiders and outsiders alike – play an important part in building a city in which we enjoy living. A city with a vibrant contemporary culture. A city with a wide range of cultural activities, from theatre to dance to music to exhibitions. A city with well-maintained streets and ample public spaces. By making a Florence for ourselves, we are creating a Florence for everyone, a place to return to with affection and anticipation.

correspondence conversations on Florence with people from elsewhere

out Maria de Peverelli

an art historian who grew up and studied in Florence, and who was the last director of the Thyssen Foundation gallery at Villa Favorita in Lugano. She lives between Zurich and London

left Florence 25 years ago. Every so often I come back to visit my family: three or four days full of commitments and with little time for sightseeing. Last Christmas, having a bit more time on hand, I decided to go for a walk and “rediscover” three places from my past: a recently reopened museum, an artist’s studio and the Uffizi. Walking along via dei Bardi, on my way towards Piazza dei Mozzi, I enter the church of Santa Lucia dei Magnoli. A certain emotion fills me at the thought of the altarpiece by Domenico Veneziano originally commissioned for this church and now at the Uffizi, my afternoon destination. I have known the Museo Bardini since childhood. My grandparents used to tell me of the parties in the garden of the villa when the azaleas were in full bloom; my father took us there as children, whenever we came back to Florence: the Museo Bardini was one of his favourite places together with the Brancacci chapel, the chapel of Benozzo Gozzoli and Palazzo Davanzati. Years later I returned many times whilst reading art history at the university of Florence. After a long period of renovation the museum re-opened in April. Bardini’s life has been one of my passions. His taste, his friends, the influence he had on art dealers and collectors, were the subject of many of my studies. The Isabella Stewart Gardner and the Jacquemart-André are still among my favourite museums and they would not exist without Bardini. As I enter the refurbished Museum I am blown away by its blue walls (the famous Bardini blue): what a perfect backdrop for those imposing architectural pastiches presented alongside antiquities, Gothic and Renaissance art works. Everything here reflects Bardini’s unique taste for decoration more than historical accuracy. His taste was also very eclectic and he collected arms and armour, carpets, bronze statuettes, cassoni, reliefs with the Madonna and Child, works by the Della Robbia and an unexpected group of drawings by Tiepolo. Such an array of different art works stimulates one’s fantasy, but also curiosity, about Stefano Bardini, the painter who turned into a restorer and then an art dealer : his acquisitions, his sales, his correspondence, his travels, his discoveries, his friends, his clients. There is no catalogue, video or guide book to satisfy this longing, only a few panels. However, here, far away from the crowds, I feel somehow that the Florentine spirit which fascinated and still fascinates Italians and foreigners alike, is still alive. In this perfectly re-created show room of the 19th century art dealer, everything magically blends in a perfect balance. Those objects speak for themselves. The Bartolini/Romanelli workshop in Borgo San Frediano is my next destination. It is a nondescript building with huge wooden doors that would pass unnoticed if not for a plaque on its façade with the inscription: Pasquale Romanelli/Scultore fiorentino/di Lorenzo Bartolini/discepolo e adiutore degno/qui ebbe lo studio/dal 1851 al 1887/rinnovando l’inclito esempio/dell’antica bottega/il comune di Firenze l’anno 1922. One step is enough to leap into another world, a world where time seems to have come to a halt. A huge space with incredible height that leaves you breathless, against the end wall a relief with the story of Romolo and, among two pietra serena columns, the large gesso of a Pietà. Next to it, almost ridiculous in its unjustified size a huge Askar. The next wall is almost entirely taken up by an enormous relief depicting The Justice of Trajan. Casts are scattered everywhere, together with studio models. A huge equestrian sculpture dominates the whole room : the monument to Skanderbeg (Albania’s national hero). As indicated by the plaque over the outside door, Lorenzo Bartolini was the first to transform what used to be the church of the convent of the Arcangel Raphael into his studio. He made of it one of the most popular and active artist’s workshops in Europe. At his death, in 1851, his favourite pupil, Pasquale Romanelli took over and it has been in his family ever since. Among this crowd of casts, where the 1966 flood has left a subtle mark, it is not difficult to picture the bustling activity that characterized this workshop for over a century. This is a magical location, recalling a particular chapter of Florentine history. A place that could easily disappear, ignored by a town that passes it by indifferently. Luckily, the young Romanellis, all sculptors themselves, have opened the space to the public and are doing their best to keep it alive in the spirit of their ancestors. It is four o’clock. I retrace my morning steps and arrive at the Ponte Vecchio. I cross it and find myself outside the Uffizi. There is scaffolding and other signs of work in progress: I remember reading about the Grandi Uffizi, about the seven new rooms that are due to open in the summer of 2010 and the controversial new exit designed by Isozaki. I have not been to the museum for over ten years and I am rather excited. In the morning I had booked the ticket and can therefore skip the queue to enter. The first two flights of stairs are as I recall them : very steep and with somewhat worn walls. The last flight has been repainted : a pale green that seems to lighten the ascent to the corridor with its ancient sculptures and the collection of portraits, what a sight! A museum within the museum. Unfortunately packed with people. I enjoy walking through the familiar rooms where almost nothing seems to have changed, even the old, transparent, panels with the names of the most prominent artists in the room are still there. Looking more closely I notice that some paintings have been restored and that there are more descriptive captions. Almost too many paintings for the unaccustomed eye. Walking into the Botticelli room I understand how someone entering here for the first time might be caught by the Stendhal syndrome! Next to me a young American father explains to his teenage daughter, "Botticelli is like Renoir, he paints blonde pretty girls." I spend a quarter of an hour in front of Simone Martini’s Annuciation, fascinated, once again, by the exceptional beauty of this painting which, I think, might be one of the reasons why I decided to study art history. I cannot see the Leonardos or the Pollaiolos properly, too many people. The Tribuna is under restoration: part of it has been recreated on the other side of the corridor. The Caravaggio is not in its usual place: it has been moved to the ground floor, a museum guard tells me. The museum is about to close, it is time to leave. Before going down the stairs I rush to the Niobe room, almost empty and still as I remembered it, a masterpiece of neoclassical taste. I peep through the closed doors of the cafe. The descent begins. We are directed through a series of bare rooms and corridors where, once in a while, large photographs of Florentine buildings with scaffolding or cranes hang. I wonder if they are meant to be telling us this: we are working towards the Grandi Uffizi. At a certain point an arrow indicates: Caravaggio. In one of three narrow rooms, among works by the master and his followers, the formidable Medusa by Caravaggio is displayed. Why there, I ask myself. We are not at the exit yet. One still needs to walk through a series of rooms where all sorts of items are for sale: books, scarves, wine. I cannot but think of the wonderful shops of the National Gallery, the Victoria and Albert, the Louvre or the Musée d’Orsay. After another couple of small rooms and corridors we are out. It is dark and cold. The streets are almost empty. I arrive at the Ponte Santa Trinità and look around: Ponte Vecchio, the Cestello dome, San Miniato, Porta San Niccolò, the tower of Palazzo Vecchio. The rigorous beauty of the city fills me with joy and I think within myself that this view alone is a good enough reason to come back.

natural history and anthropology museums

his prestigious institution, originally known as the Imperial and Royal Museum of Physics and Natural History, was founded in 1775 by Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo of Hapsburg Lorraine. His intention was to house the collections of natural artefacts and scientific instruments, previously kept in the Uffizi Gallery, closer to Palazzo Pitti, the grand ducal residence, in Via Romana. The museum later came to be known as “La Specola”, recalling the Astronomical Observatory once housed here and which ceased to function in 1789. The institute now consists of six sections, or museums, located in palaces throughout the centre

Anthropology and Ethnology

Items reflecting the traditions and customs of indigenous peoples are exhibited here, illustrating important historic expeditions such as James Cook’s third journey to Polynesia, the exploration of the Northern Arctic, and the Fosco Maraini collection from the island of Hokkaido in Japan. The American Indians, Lapland, Siberia and Indonesia are all represented in separate sections. Via del Proconsolo, 12 open: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday 9.00-13.00, Saturday 9.00-17.00 closed: 1 January, Easter, 1 May, 15 August, 25 December

Botany

The Botanical Museum houses some exceptional herbals such as the Herbarium Centrale Italicum, the ancient Herbal produced by Andrea Cesalpino in 1563, and the artistic and didactic collections which include the still life paintings of Bartolomeo Bimbi and wax models of plants, fruits and mushrooms made in the 18th and 19th century. Via Giorgio La Pira, 4 open: only by appointment telephone number: 055 2346760

Geology and Palaeontology

This museum exhibits the fossils of vertebrates that have been found in Tuscany, illustrating the palaeontological history of the region, its palaeogeography and the progressive stages in the evolution of marine and terrestrial fauna. Among the items displayed are the skeleton of the oldest primate found in Tuscany and a collection of large mammals, including the skeletons of some impressive proboscideans that lived thousands of years ago. Via Giorgio La Pira, 4 open: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday 9.00-13.00, Saturday 9.00-17.00 closed: 1 January, Easter, 1 May, 15 August, 25 December

Botanical Gardens (Medicinal Herb Garden)

The Botanical Gardens originated in 1545 as a garden of medicinal plants. Today the grounds cover an area of 3 hectares, with a series of thematic flowerbeds, large hot-houses and smaller greenhouses. Itineraries are available for the blind, based on touch and smell. The gardens are also home to some monumental trees, several of which are over 300 years old. Via P. A. Micheli, 3 open: from 16 October to 31 March, Saturday, Sunday, Monday 10.00-17.00; from 1 April to 15 October, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday 10.00-19.00 closed:1 January, Easter, 1 May, 15 August, 25 December

calendar of exhibitions april-september 2010 www.firenzescienza.it

Firenze Scienza. Le collezioni, i luoghi e i personaggi dell’Ottocento 8 November 2009-9 May 2010

“Firenze Scienza” is a sequence of exhibitions presenting thousands of unique and priceless items, instruments, artefacts, paintings, drawings and sculptures. The itinerary takes in four important Florentine museums: Palazzo Medici Riccardi (1829 Art, Science and Society); the Museum of Natural History, “La Specola” - Zoological Section (Galileo’s Tribune and the Specola of Florence); the Foundation of Science and Technology, “Gabinetto di Fisica” (19th-century Scientific Education); the Institute and Museum of the History of Science (Physics in Florence in the 19th century).

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natural history and anthropology museums

of Florence, where items of quite exceptional naturalistic and scientific value are preserved. These include 16th-century herbals, rare 18th-century waxworks, fossilized skeletons of elephants and collections of brightly coloured butterflies, giant crystals of tourmaline, Aztec artefacts, majestic wooden sculptures and even the largest flower in the world. The museums represent an impressive universe of nature, history, science and art. Guided visits and itineraries are provided for all age groups and workshops are held allowing visitors not only to enjoy the marvels of nature, but to carry out experiments individually or in family groups. Administrative offices: Via Giorgio La Pira, 4

www.msn.unifi.it

“La Specola” On the ground floor is the “Skeleton Hall” where the skulls and complete skeletons of ancient and extinct animals are housed. On the first floor is Galileo’s Tribune, created in 1841 as a homage to the great Tuscan scientist. The second floor houses the zoological museum, providing an almost complete panorama of existing animals as well as a large number now extinct or in danger of extinction. The collection of anatomical waxes includes items of great scientific, and also artistic, interest, which are of great importance and continue to be consulted in the study of anatomy. Recently the “Torrino” of the “Specola”, was re-opened to the public, and the new arrangement exhibits some of the most important historic and scientific items including many from the Medici collections. Thus the fundamental concept of uniting all aspects of scientific knowledge, which led to the foundation of the Imperial and Royal Museum of Physics and Natural History in 1775, has finally been recreated here in its original home in Via Romana. Via Romana, 17 open: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday 9.30-16.30, Sunday 9.30-18.00 closed: 1 January, Easter, 1 May, 15 August, 25 December

new publications • Museo di Storia Naturale dell’Università degli Studi di Firenze – Guida alla visita delle Sezioni, Edited by F. Barbagli, G. Pratesi, Firenze, Polistampa, 2009

• Il Museo di Storia Naturale dell’Università degli Studi di Firenze. Le collezioni della Specola: zoologia e cere anatomiche, Edited by G. Barsanti, G. Chelazzi, Firenze University Press, 2009

• Il Museo di Storia Naturale dell’Università di Firenze. Le collezioni botaniche, Edited by M. Raffaelli, Firenze University Press, 2009 • A. Giazotto, F. Pezzotta, G. Pratesi, Cristalli. Capolavori della natura, Firenze, Giunti, 2008

Mineralogy and Lithology

Completely renewed, this section documents the diversity of minerals, their individual properties and characteristics and their various uses in everyday life. Splendid examples of minerals can be handled and studied. Videos and innovative educational multi-media graphics describe and illustrate the museum’s collections of minerals, rocks and gems. Via Giorgio La Pira, 4 open: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday 9.00-13.00, Saturday 9.00-17.00 closed: 1 January, Easter, 1 May, 15 August, 25 December

calendar of exhibitions april-september 2010 Cristalli la più bella mostra di minerali al mondo Museum of Natural History “La Specola” 1 April 2009-30 June 2010 This exhibition introduces the fascinating and little-known subject of crystals. For centuries these formations have been sought, collected, studied, and traded and have played an important role in economic and scientific history, in the evolution of culture, art and even medicine. open: Tuesday to Saturday 9.30-16.30, Sunday 9.30-18.00 closed: Easter, 1 May

www.mostracristallifirenze.it

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20th-century collections

Fondazione Parchi Monumentali Bardini e Peyron

The Fondazione Parchi Monumentali Bardini e Peyron was founded in 1998 by the Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze following the restoration project targeting the Bardini buildings, promoted in the early 1990s, and the later purchase of the Fonte Lucente complex from the well-to-do Peyron family, of Piemontese origin. The Bardini complex includes the 17th-century villa at Costa San Giorgio 2 (home of the Museo Annigoni and the Fondazione Capucci) and the extensive Bardini Gardens, with its entrance at Via dei Bardi 1r. The Peyron complex, covering about 40 hectares, includes the villa at Via di Vincigliata 2 (Fiesole) and the “Bosco di Fontelucente” woodlands. for info on opening times please consult the website

www.bardinipeyron.it

Museo Pietro Annigoni

The Fondazione Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze bought works formerly owned by Benedetto and Ricciarda, the children of Pietro Annigoni, in 2007. The museum, inaugurated in November 2008, counts more than 6000 pieces and is thus the world’s largest collection of Annigoni’s work.To begin with, the foundation intends to show an ample selection of the collection’s contents, including the best-known of the early self-portraits and various portraits of family members. Later, there will be other works or a permanent exhibition accompanied by a series of events and initiatives related to Annigoni and his world. Costa San Giorgio, 2 open: from 1 October to 31 March, Wednesday to Friday 10.00-16.00, Saturday and Sunday 10.00-18.00; from 1 April to 30 September, Wednesday to Sunday 10.00-18.00

www.bardinipeyron.it/annigoni

Angel Academy of Art, Firenze 13-30 May 2010 For the centenary celebrations of the birth of Pietro Annigoni, an exhibition in collaboration with the Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze and the Fondazione Parchi Monumentali Bardini e Peyron.

The Palazzi Mozzi Bardini. A Treasure of the Oltrarno In 1977, the Italian government acquired the complex of buildings that includes the Palazzi Mozzi Bardini, in Piazza dei Mozzi, impossible to miss when crossing Ponte alle Grazie heading towards the Oltrano area. The austere façades that stretch between Via San Niccolò and Via de’ Bardi give no hint of the extraordinary buildings they conceal: ancient medieval structures, once the property of the Mozzi family. The antiquarian Stefano Bardini purchased the complex in the late 1800s and proceeded to restore it in its entirety, accentuating its medieval characteristics; at his death, the property passed to his son and daughter, Ugo and Emma. Upon the death of Ugo Bardini the Italian government – and thus the Ministry for Cultural Assets – acquired not only the entire complex of buildings but also the many artworks they contained, a treasure equal, in quality if not in quantity, to the bequest made by Ugo’s father Stefano to the City of Florence in 1922 and today on display in the city museum that bears his name. This is an immense legacy, conserved and augmented by Ugo as he continued his father’s commercial activities and indulged in a similar passion for collecting. The massive assets, now under the umbrella of the Soprintendenza Speciale per il Patrimonio Storico, Artistico e Etnoantropologico e per il Polo Museale della città di Firenze, consist of a great variety of objects from different historical periods and made in all sorts of materials, some originating in Florence and others sought out and purchased throughout Italy. The collection includes paintings, sculptures from ancient times to the 19th century, decorative architectural pieces, weapons, rugs, fabrics, plaster pieces, musical instruments, majolica-ware, examples of the applied arts in metals, and a great quantity of furnishings and furniture, all collected by Stefano and Ugo Bardini over more than a century. Today, portions of this extraordinary collection are preserved in many of the rooms in the Palazzi and in the garden that climbs the hill behind the the Palazzi to Villa Bardini, Ugo’s residence until his death. This extraordinary treasure has been restored over the last ten years, though much remains to be done, and is earmarked as the nucleus of the future Museo delle Arti Applicate e dell’Antiquariato (Applied Arts and Antiques Museum), a precious addition to Florence’s already exceptional set of national museums and designed to illustrate just one more aspect of the city’s rich cultural life in the 1800s and 1900s. Giovanna Damiani Director of the Palazzi Mozzi-Bardini

Capucci Museum

Housed in Villa Bardini, the Capucci Museum is entirely dedicated to the work of the fashion designer Roberto Capucci. Managed by the Roberto Capucci Foundation, which moved to Florence from Rome for the occasion, the exhibition space first opened -earlier, on 27 October 2007(the museum opened to the public a year later), with a temporary exhibition entitled Ritorno alle origini (Return to Origins). Following its great success, the show became a permanent exhibition, focusing on a series of 12 sculpted dresses tailor-made for the Venice Biennial of 1995 and originally not intended to be worn. Rotated periodically, about 30 other dresses are exhibited according to various groups and cover the entire production of the designer since 1950. These are accompanied by sketches, drawings, audio-visuals, press articles and photographs. In addition, the Foundation periodically organizes educational events and seminars. 32

exhibition L’eredità di Annigoni

Costa San Giorgio, 2 open: from 1 October to 31 March, Wednesday to Friday 10.00-16.00 and Saturday and Sunday 10.00-18.00; from 1 April to 30 September, Wednesday to Sunday 10.00-16.00.

www.fondazionerobertocapucci.com

Capucci elsewhere “Futurismo – Moda – Design. La ricostruzione futurista dell’universo quotidiano” (Futurism – Fashion – Design. The Futurist reconstruction of the everyday universe) Museo della Moda e delle Arti Applicate dei Musei Provinciali di Gorizia Curated by Raffaella Sgubin and Carla Cerutti until 1 May 2010 The Provincial Museums of Gorizia have dedicated an exhibition to fashion and the “Futurist reconstruction of the everyday universe” curated by Raffaella Sgubin and Carla Cerutti. Around one hundred original pieces are exhibited with a preview of the dress designed by Roberto Capucci in 2009 as a homage to Futurism.

20th-century collections

Museo Nazionale Alinari della Fotografia

The MNAF (Alinari Brothers National Photographic Museum) is sited in a recently-restructured 15th-century building known as the “ Leopoldine,” managed by the Fratelli Alinari Fondazione per la Storia della Fotografia (Alinari Brothers Foundation for the History of Photography). The museum includes a space for temporary exhibitions of historical and contemporary photography and a permanent exhibition space devoted to the history and the techniques of photography. A particular feature of the museum is the Museo Tattile (Tactile Museum) for the blind: for the first time, a museum space devoted to photography includes specially designed Braille supports for “reading” the works. Piazza Santa Maria Novella, 14a rosso open: 10.00-19.00 closed: Wednesday

www.mnaf.it

calendar of exhibitions april-september 2010 Parigi capitale della fotografia 1920-1940. Collezione Christian Bouqueret The Christian Bouqueret Collection Curated by Marta Ponsa and Michael Roulette 14 January 2010-11 April 2010 The first large-scale show devoted to photographic production during this important period, shows more than 100 vintage prints, by more than 40 photographers who worked in Paris from 1920 to 1940, plus original period documents (magazines, books, etc.). The exhibition presents a stimulating itinerary through the rich formality of the “New Photographic Vision in France.” The exhibition is organised by the Jeu de Paume in Paris in collaboration with the Fratelli Alinari Fondazione per la Storia della Fotografia.

Ansia d’immagini. Italo Zannier fotografo 1952-1976 Curated by Angelo Maggi 22 April 2010-27 June 2010

This exhibition covers a historic period for Italian photography, dominated by Neorealist thought. Zannier a founder of the “Gruppo Friulano”, contributed to the drafting of the “Manifesto” of photographic Neorealism. The exhibition includes a selection of the more than 47,000 images in black and white and colour in the complete archive of the artist’s work held by the Raccolte Museali della Fratelli Alinari (Fratelli Alinari Museum Collections) with the 5000 original photographic prints in the collection.

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Museo Salvatore Ferragamo

The collection of footwear on exhibition at this museum, inaugurated in 1995, documents the entire working life of Salvatore Ferragamo, from his return to Italy in 1927 until his death in 1960. The Museum highlights both the great technical prowess and the artistic flair of a master whose contribution to the brand “Made in Italy” was fundamental, and his relations with the artists of his time. The collection is enhanced by post1960 production: every year, several contemporary models are given places in the Archivio Salvatore Ferragamo archive, from which the museum selects the materials for exhibit. Piazza Santa Trinita, 5 rosso open: Wednesday to Monday 10.00-18.00; in August, Monday to Saturday 10.00-13.00, 14.00-18.00 closed: 1 January, 1 May, 15 August, 25 December

www.museoferragamo.it

galileo museum

he Institute and Museum of the History of Science, reopened as the Museo Galileo (Galileo Museum) after extensive renovation, is heir to a prestigious tradition of scientific collecting that boasts nearly five centuries of history and centres on the importance attributed, by the Tuscan grand dukes, to the protagonists and to the tools of science. The Institute as we know it today was founded in 1930 to halt the dispersal of the earlier collections and to collect, catalogue and restore the material legacies of science; the museum contains the Medici and the Lorraine collections. Great patrons of the arts, the Medici were also, for about three centuries, great patrons of the sciences. From Cosimo il Vecchio to Gian Gastone, relationships between Medici power and the sciences were distinguished by their dual cultural and celebratory value. Profoundly sure that scientific knowledge and technological control of nature could add to their prestige and political power, with great farsightedness the Medici promoted the activities of astronomers and mathematicians and at the same time assembled one of the most extraordinary collections of mathematical tools and exhibits in the natural sciences of the times. The collection was on show at the Uffizi Gallery until 1775, when Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo of HapsburgLorraine ordered it transferred to the Royal Museum of Physics and Natural History at Palazzo Torrigiani (today’s “La Specola” museum). Further enriched under the patronage of the Lorraines, the collection was moved to its current location in Palazzo Castellani in 1930. The Institute currently manages a research centre, a specialised library, a multimedia laboratory, and a restoration workshop, besides – of course – the museum.

The Fondazione Scienza e Tecnica was founded in 1987 by the Comune di Firenze, and the Provincia and Regione of Tuscany, with the academic support of the Institute and Museum of the History of Science, to promote scientific and technological culture, with the restoration and evaluation of the historic-scientific patrimony held by the 19th-century Istituto Tecnico Toscano. Via Giusti, 29

www.fstfirenze.it

Piazza dei Giudici, 1 open: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday 9.30-18.00; Tuesday 9.30-13.00; Sunday 10.00-18.00 closed: 1 January, 6 January, 4, 5 April, 1 May, 8, 25, 26 December

restoration

new publications

On the occasion of the Museum’s renovation, one of its most important and famous pieces has been restored: the Sfera Armillare, created in Florence by Antonio Santucci di Pomarance between 1588 and 1593, and placed at the centre of the cosmography room.

Il Museo Galileo, Firenze, Giunti, 2010 Oggi scopro “Il Museo Galileo”, Touring Editore, 2010

www.imss.fi.it

calendar of exhibitions april-september 2010 www.firenzescienza.it

La Fisica a Firenze nell’Ottocento. Macchine e modelli da utilizzare curated by Simone Contardi and Mara Miniati 8 November 2009-9 May 2010 The subject of this show is Florence’s “Gabinetto di Fisica del Museo di Fisica e Storia Naturale,” created in 1775 by Pietro Leopoldo, Grand Duke of Tuscany, with particular emphasis on the renovation executed by Vincenzo Antinori, Director from 1829 to 1859. Of great interest is the section devoted to research into electromagnetism carried out by one of the greatest scientists of Antinori’s time, Leopoldo Nobili. Models and machines have been restored to working order for the occasion, and visitors are encouraged to start them up and see what they do.

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stibbert museum

ow a Foundation, the Stibbert Museum came into being in 1908 on the death of Frederick Stibbert (1838-1906). According to the terms of his will, Stibbert left his art collections and the building where they were housed, located at Montughi, to the city of Florence. The bequest is now a rare example of a 19th-century house and museum which is still well preserved. In recent years, many of the original arrangements and exhibits, altered during the 20th century, have been reinstated. The museum is famous for its European, Islamic and Japanese armoury, but it also houses many fine paintings, an important collection of costumes and textiles, and numerous examples of the applied arts, from porcelain to majolica, tapestries, furnishings, chests and tooled leather. Stibbert arranged his collections in dramatic and fascinating set pieces which demonstrate his passion for the history of costume and artistic craftsmanship. The bedroom, sitting rooms and ballroom represent everyday life in Stibbert’s house and are fascinating records of the life and habits of this wealthy Anglo-Florentine family. The museum also includes an extensive romantic park.

Via F. Stibbert, 26 open: Monday to Wednesday, 10.00-14.00; Friday to Sunday, 10.00-18.00 closed: 1 January, Easter Monday, 1 May, 15 August, 25 December

www.museostibbert.it

Exhibitions Marriage chests June-September 2010 On the occasion of the exhibition The Virtues of Love to be held at the Accademia Gallery, a small display of marriage chests in the Stibbert collection.

events Through the eyes of... Frederick Stibbert 14 May 2010 As part of the “Amico Museo” initiative organized by the Tuscan Region, a free open day on the theme of collecting. A children’s workshop on the theme of armour will be held in the afternoon.

works on loan • in: Pontassieve, Palazzo Comunale for the exhibition: Beato Angelico a Pontassieve. Dipinti e sculture del Rinascimento fiorentino 28 February-27 June 2010 On show is the Madonna con Bambino, polychrome stucco by Nanni di Bartolo.

Event • in: The Principality of Monaco, Grimaldi Forum for the exhibition: KyotoTokyo-Des Samourais aux Mangas 14 July-12 September 2010 A well-defined selection of arms and armour from the Stibbert collection is part of the exhibition to be held at the Grimaldi Forum.

new publications

• in: Paris, Cité des Sciences for the exhibition: Deuxième peau. Evolution de la protection corporelle March-June 2010

• Francesco Civita, Le tsuba della raccolta Stibbert, Firenze, Polistampa, 2010 (in preparation)

Armour from the Stibbert Museum in the history of protective suits and body armour, from the carapace of a tortoise to the spacesuit of an astronaut.

• A new issue of the ‘Firenze-Museo Stibbert’ bulletin dedicated to sword sheaths (tsuba), veritable microcosms of fantastic and artistic creativity invented by Japanese craftsmen.

• in: Florence, Museo dell’Opificio delle Pietre Dure for the exhibition: The Stibbert plaques April-May 2010 Two 16th-century plaques made in Milan and restored in the laboratories of the “Opificio” are exhibited.

The Tryptych of the Virgin and Child with Saints This event sees the return, after thirty years, of a work stolen in 1977 when a serious theft deprived the museum of dozens of items, only some of which have been traced and recovered. Investigations by the police branch responsible for cultural heritage began following information from an art historian who recognized the work, then in the possession of an antiquarian in Brescia who was unaware of its illegal provenance. The small wooden triptych, dating from the second half of the 14th century, has a main panel of the Virgin enthroned, wrapped in a cloak, the arms of the Child around her neck, all on a gold background. The side panels have smaller scenes: on the left, Saint Paul, Saint Peter and Saint Catherine with a second female saint; on the right is the Crucifixion with the Virgin and Saint John below the Cross, and a bishop saint with John the Baptist. The figures are still quite clear and the colours gleam on the punched gold background. Originally located in the Balcony Room where Stibbert housed all his panel paintings, it was subsequently moved, first to the “Condottiero” Room (formerly the Cabinet Room) and then the Flag Room, from where it was stolen in 1977. As a result of its recovery, the traditional inventory description is to be updated to add the results of new tests following recent analysis of the work. The piece is exhibited with other important recovered items in the exhibition Aspects of the sacred rediscovered, in the Sala Bianca in Palazzo Pitti until 6 April 2010. Immediately after, this small triptych will return to the Stibbert Museum, completing the collection of early and 14th-century works which are now the subject of new research by Michela Palmieri, bringing to light the historic and artistic importance of the collection.

palazzo medici riccardi • horne museum 36

n 1911, the English architect and art historian Herbert Percy Horne purchased Palazzo Corsi in Via de’ Benci to house his collection of paintings, sculptures, drawings, and furnishings in such a way as to recreate the atmosphere of a Renaissance home. Horne died in 1916, his collection (which in the meantime had grown to include more than 6000 works)was left to the Italian State, creating a foundation “for the benefit of study.” Today, visitors see the Horne Museum as the English collector would have wanted them to: an elegant treasure chest of masterpieces of painting and sculpture (from Giotto to Simone Martini, Masaccio, Filippino Lippi, Domenico Beccafumi, and Giambologna), but above all as a home, decorated with precious items dating from the 1200s to the 1600s. In the heart of Florence, this symbol of the culture and art of the Renaissance is a space in which to relive the past and discover the customs, costumes, and art as they were in the Florentine Quattrocento and Cinquecento. In 2004, research, teaching, and temporary exhibitions were moved to specially equipped spaces on the palace’s basement level.

exhibition Il Paesaggio disegnato. John Constable e i maestri inglesi nella raccolta Horne 24 October 2009-30 January 2010 closing date extended to 10 April 2010

Virtù d’amore. Pittura nuziale nel Quattrocento fiorentino 8 June-1 November 2010 This exhibition has been organized in collaboration with the Accademia. The exhibition displays important examples from the large nucleus of painted chests (cassoni) in the Horne Museum Collections. These rare pieces, part of the Museum’s original collection, are enriched on this unique occasion by several works on loan from private collectors.

project Artigiani in famiglia a Palazzo “Artigiani in famiglia a Palazzo” is one of the novelties at the 16th edition of Artigianato e Palazzo, 14 to 16 May 2010 at Palazzo Corsini sul Prato. “Artigiani in famiglia” is a Horne Museum project which for five successive shows has been accompanying children and their parents through the world of arts and crafts. Masters of their crafts unite learning and play as they lead theme-related workshops.

Via dei Benci, 6 open: from Monday to Saturday 9.00-13.00

www.museohorne.it

he history of Palazzo Medici Riccardi is particularly fascinating - rich in art but also political, cultural and worldly events. Commissioned by the Medici and built in the mid-15th century by Michelozzo, the building became a prototype for Renaissance civil architecture. In 1659 the Medici sold it to the Riccardi who extended the building northwards and partially renovated the interior. The modifications in Baroque style, particularly intensive during the last two decades of the 1600s, reflected an elaborate pomp and sophisticated erudition. When the fortunes of the Riccardi waned and the splendour began to fade, in 1814 the family sold the palazzo to the State. Since 1874 it has belonged to the Provincial Authority which, since the early 1900s, has adopted a policy aimed at the reclamation and promotion of the building and the works housed within. Now transformed into a museum, Palazzo Medici Riccardi offers the visitor the chance to retrace over four centuries of the history of art, architecture and collecting in Florence. The core of the palazzo is Michelozzo’s 15th-century courtyard, one of the most delightful of Renaissance Florence. The true gem of the palazzo is the Chapel of the Magi, reached via the elegant 17th-century staircase. The chapel, built and decorated in the 15th century, is harmoniously decorated with enchantingly beautiful scenes. The frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli constitute an important illustration of life at the time of the Medici in Florence. Another important attraction of the Palazzo Medici Riccardi Museum is the www.firenzescienza.it magnificent Gallery, created at the end of the exhibition 17th century and also located on the first floor, Firenze 1829. overlooking the garden and dominated by the Arte, scienza e società frescoed ceiling by Luca Giordano. Finally, an Curated by Silvestra Bietoletti 8 November 2009-9 May 2010 integral part of the palazzo and its history are Paintings, sculptures, drawings, furnishings the Moreniana and Riccardiana Libraries, and scientific instruments from Italian located in magnificently decorated premises, museums and institutes and private with access from Via Ginori. collections, illustrate town life and the

Via Cavour, 3 open: every day 9.00–19.00 closed: Wednesday

www.palazzo-medici.it

collecting, philanthropic and progressive tastes and interests of pre-Risorgimento Florence.

casa buonarroti

uilt by Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger to celebrate his family’s fame, this fine 17thcentury palace, is now a house museum with a dual function: to bear witness to the efforts of the Buonarroti through the centuries to expand and embellish their home, to protect the precious cultural legacies it contains (including the valuable Archives and the Library), and to preserve rare art collections; and at the same time, to celebrate the genius of Michelangelo, exhibiting many of his works, such as two marble reliefs, masterpieces from the artist’s younger years, the Madonna of the Stairs and the Battle of the Centaurs, and alongside them the extensive collection of drawings. The museum holds annual exhibitions addressing themes that relate to the Casa’s cultural and artistic heritage and its legacy, as well as to Michelangelo and his times.

Via Ghibellina, 70 open: Monday and Wednesday to Sunday 9.30-14.00 closed: 1 January, Easter, 1 May, 15 August, 25 December

www.casabuonarroti.it

restoration • Statues from the Museo della Casa Buonarroti • The precious tarsie lignee from the four 17th century rooms of the museum works on loan Casa Buonarroti in Williamsburg (Virginia, USA), Muscarelle Museum

events concerts “Le parole e la musica – sere d’estate in Casa Buonarroti” 18th edition six evening performances July 2010

for the exhibition Michelangelo. Architecture as Anatomy 4 February-11 April 2010

Lugano, Museum of Art for the exhibition Robert Mapplethorpe, La perfezione della forma 20 March-13 June 2010

Milan, Palazzo Reale for the exhibition L’anima del fuoco 12 February-11 May 2010

Göteborg for the exhibition The Masters of the Renaissance 20 March-15 August 2010

Vitoria (Brazil) for the exhibition La bellezza della scultura di Michelangelo 9 March-7 June 2010

exhibitions at Casa Buonarroti Exhibitions, on a rotating basis, of nuclei of drawings by Michelangelo from the Casa Buonarroti Collection.

Una gloria europea: Pietro da Cortona a Firenze 8 June-27 September 2010

in other locations Michelangelo: grafia e biografia Napoli-Otranto Curated by Lucilla Bardeschi Ciulich and Pina Ragionieri Spring-Fall 2010

academies and foundations

Accademia della Crusca

The Accademia della Crusca was founded in Florence in 1582-1583 by five Florentines: Giovan Battista Deti, Anton Francesco Grazzini, Bernardo Canigiani, Bernardo Zanchini, Bastiano de’ Rossi. They were joined almost immediately by Lionardo Salviati, who drew up a cultural programme and a system for codification of the Italian language. Spirited meetings, jokingly called cruscate (from crusca, coarse bran as opposed to fine flour), gave the Accademia its name. From the very beginning, the Accademia welcomed Italian and foreign scholars and exponents of various fields of knowledge: besides grammarians and philologists, there were writers and poets (Tassoni, Maffei, Monti, Leopardi, Manzoni, Carducci, ecc.), scientists (Galilei, Redi, Torricelli), historians (Muratori, Capponi), philosophers (Voltaire, Rosmini), jurists and statesmen (Witte, Gladstone). The Accademia’s principal work, the Vocabolario (1612; enlarged and republished in numerous editions until 1923), while disparaged by critics for the limits it set on the use of “living language,” made a decisive contribution to the identification and diffusion of the Italian language and provided an example for the great French, Spanish, German, and English dictionaries. www.accademiadellacrusca.it

Accademia dei Georgofili

The Accademia dei Georgofili was founded in 1753 with the purpose of contributing to scientific progress applied to agriculture and to the development of the rural world. It was first housed in the Magliabechiana Library in Palazzo Vecchio, and in 1932 moved to its current location in the Torre de’ Pulci. The Accademia’s extraordinary library holds over 70.000 volumes ranging from monographs to journals. Permanent exhibitions as well as temporary ones bear witness to the wealth of its holdings, unique in the history of agriculture. Logge degli Uffizi Corti reading rooms open: from Monday to Friday

www.georgofili.it

Fondazione Longhi

Gabinetto Scientifico Letterario Vieusseux

At the time of its foundation in Palazzo Buondelmonti on 25 January 1820 by Giovan Pietro Vieusseux, a businessman from Geneva and exponent of the Enlightenment, this Gabinetto Scientifico Letterario was perfectly aligned with the atmosphere of the period in which the great private cultural institutions came into being. After the Gabinetto reading room, the lending Library was founded in about 1822. Many intellectuals became regular visitors to the Library, or attended the evening salons. Among the finest, perhaps, were those in honour of Leopardi and Manzoni, who met here in September 1827. In the decades that followed, the fortunes of the Gabinetto continued unabated, arousing enthusiasm among foreigners and Florentines alike. In 1925, by this time the property of the City of Florence, the Gabinetto was granted the status of “ente morale,” an independent institution in the public interest, under the city’s financial management; it was later moved to Palazzo Strozzi. This is still the official status of the Gabinetto Vieusseux, which has counted among its ranks personalities of the calibre of Tecchi, Montale, and Bonsanti, to whom we owe the 1966 founding of the Antologia Vieusseux periodical. Although gravely damaged by the 1966 flood, the Gabinetto Vieusseux is still a vital institution in Florence, an active organiser of conferences and events and custodian of a rich Library and the Contemporary Archives established in 1975 by Bonsanti, with the purpose of collecting material relating the personalities in the contemporary world. Palazzo Strozzi, Piazza Strozzi Library: Monday, Wednesday and Friday 9.00-13.30, Tuesday and Thursday 9.00-18.00; Historical Archive: Monday, Wednesday and Friday 9.0014.00, Tuesday and Thursday 9.00-14.00, 15.00-18.00; Archivio Contemporaneo “Alessandro Bonsanti” (Palazzo Corsini Suarez, Via Maggio, 42): Monday, Tuesday and Friday 9.00-13.00, Wednesday and Thursday 9.00-17.30

www.vieusseux.fi.it

The Fondazione di Studi di Storia dell’Arte Roberto Longhi was established in 1971 following Longhi’s wish that his library, his photo archive, and his art collection “benefit the younger generation.” The foundation is based at Villa “Il Tasso,” which Longhi purchased in 1939. He lived here until his death with his wife Lucia Lopresti (the author Anna Banti), who in turn named the Foundation as her sole heir, leaving to it the villa and all its furniture and furnishings. Today, the Fondazione Longhi’s books (about 36,000 volumes), photos (70,000 items), and art collection (paintings, drawings, engravings, miniatures, and sculptures), plus vast archives, are at the disposal of scholars and students. The primary objective of the institution is to encourage and further the study of art history while keeping alive Roberto Longhi’s cultural legacy and the methods he devised. Via Benedetto Fortini, 30 Library open: Monday to Friday 9.30-13.00, 14.00-17.30 by appointment

www.fondazionelonghi.it

“La Colombaria” Tuscan Academy for Sciences and Literature

“La Colombaria” developed spontaneously from the meetings of a group of Florentine scholars who established the Academy in 1735. Today it houses an archive consisting of manuscripts, incunabula, 16th-century books and letters, material dating from as early as the 13th century and a collection of drawings and prints bought and donated by some of the members. The Academy also publishes a journal entitled “Studi” and the “Atti e Memorie” appear annually. The library consists of some 10,000 volumes and includes the Devoto, Ravà, Procissi and Rodolico archives. Via Sant’Egidio, 23 open: Monday to Friday 9.30-13.30

www.colombaria.it

The Primo Conti Foundation is housed in the 15th-century Villa “Le Coste” where the artist lived for many years. The villa was acquired in 1945 and in 1980 became the seat of the Foundation when a donation by the Conti family led to the establishment of a Documentation and Research Centre for the History of Avant Garde Movements. The Foundation has three sections: the Museum with the works of Primo Conti, the Archive and the Studio. The Museum (with 63 paintings and 163 drawings by the artist) and the Archive (housing many archives including those of Papini, Conti, Pavolini, Carocci, Pea, Samminiatelli) together represent a unique resource in Italy for the scholarly study and understanding of avant-garde movements. Via G. Dupré 18, Fiesole Museum open: Monday to Friday 9.00-13.00. Visits also on Saturday, Sunday and the afternoon, for groups, with appointments Archivio della Fondazione open: Monday to Friday 9.00-13.00, by prior appointment.

www.fondazioneprimoconti.org

Accademia delle Arti del Disegno

The Accademia delle Arti e del Disegno (initially the Accademia e Compagnia delle Arti del Disegno)was founded in 1563 by Cosimo I de’ Medici under the influence of Giorgio Vasari. Since its foundation the Accademia has excelled both as an Art School and as the preserver of the country’s artistic traditions. In 1784 the Accademia was reformed by Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo di Lorena who named it the Accademia di Belle Arti. In 1873 it was separated into two distinct branches, the Board of Academicians (Collegio degli Accademici) also known as Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, and the Teaching Institute (Accademia di Belle Arti). The Accademia, still active as a school, also holds in its collection a variety of works of art ranging from sculptures to paintings, and furniture to tapestries, many of which were donated by the artists themselves and are housed at the School’s main site and in other Florentine institutions. The Accademia’s Library, with approximately 6000 volumes, presents an important survey of Tuscan artistic culture from the 19th century to the present day. Via Orsanmichele, 4 open: Monday to Friday 9.30-13.30

www.aadfi.it

Representing the Tuscan Renaissance in particular, the Gipsoteca houses the most interesting Italian collection of plaster models. In 1922 Mario Salvini, at the time director of the Institute of Art, acquired the collection of Oronzio Lelli which formed the largest and first nucleus of the Museum. The Royal Institute of Art already owned a number of fine casts used for teaching purposes. Later, important plaster casts were transferred to the Museum from the Bargello (Donatello’s Gattamelata) and from the Accademia (Alexander Tames Bucephalus), including the cast of the David made by Clemente Papi for the Lorraine grand dukes. Today the gallery houses about 3000 casts.

Modernization along European lines was introduced by Pietro Leopoldo who renamed it the Academy of Fine Arts (1784) and reorganized it as a free and public institute for artistic education. Today the Academy develops the creative potential of its students with university level courses which encourage the study of artistic expression and contemporary art forms in keeping with the great artistic tradition of Florence. The School enrolls about 1200 students, many of whom come from different parts of the world, both through the Erasmus programmes and other International Projects. The Accademia is currently preparing new MA programmes, and is also very active in the promotion of its students’ work with exhibitions organized with local and prestigious contemporary art organizations. Via Ricasoli, 66

www.accademia.firenze.it

exhibitions

Start Point-Accademia in mostra 21 May-6 June 2010

Curated by Gianni Pozzi, Susanna Ragionieri, Laura Vecere

exhibitions

Gipsoteca dell’Istituto d’Arte

Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze

Solo exhibition Vittorio Tolu April 2010

Solo exhibition Carlo Alberto Severa May 2010

Sculptures by Delio Granchi June 2010

Finnish Architecture July 2010

Bauhaus Architecture in Tel Aviv September 2010 Curated by F. Sznura

events In collaboration with several institutions, among them Florence University and the Comune, the Accademia promotes conferences, book presentations, concerts and exhibitions on sculpture, painting and architecture, with a special focus on the contemporary world. Its exhibition centre is in Piazza San Marco.

academies and foundations

Primo Conti Foundation

The Accademia exhibits a selection of works of its students in various parts of Florence: the Istituto degli Innocenti, the Istituto Geografico Militare, and the show room in “Via Larga”. At the Art Hotel in Prato, a collective show illustrates the work of students in collaboration with the Pecci Museum. Staging of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus by the students of Stage Design classes, and also the musical event Traiettorie in collaboration with the Music Conservatory Luigi Cherubini, in the garden of the Accademia. A group of art galleries in town ((Bagnai, Biagiotti, La Corte, Santo Ficara, Frittelli, Poggiali e Forconi, Il Ponte, Studio 70, Varart, Ugolini) selects and exhibits the works of students. in preparation

In collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute in Vienna (Austria), the Accademia is exhibiting drawings by Felice Carena in its collection. The drawings are on show in Florence at the Accademia’s main site, on 18 June.

Piazzale di Porta Romana, 9 open: by appointment, weeekdays

www.isa.firenze.it/gipsoteca

synagogue and jewish museum • museum of mathematics •museo degli innocenti 40

he history of the Istituto degli Innocenti in Florence began in 1419 with the foundation of the “Spedale” built by the Guild of Silk Makers. Financed by a bequest from Francesco di Marco Datini, a merchant of Prato, the intention was to “begin a new place […] which will nourish children and allow them to grow”. Culture and beauty have always been an integral part of the social and educational function of the Istituto degli Innocenti. The modernity of the Renaissance architecture and a new concept of child care were closely linked in the structure designed by Brunelleschi. The museum of the Institute is located in the gallery, originally the children’s living quarters, above the portico which enhances the façade. It houses many important works, such as the Adoration of the Magi by Domenico Ghirlandaio, commissioned for the high altar of the church, a Virgin and Child by Luca della Robbia, an original panel with the Virgin and Saints painted by Piero di Cosimo in the late 1400s, and a splendid Virgin and Child by Sandro Botticelli. In addition to these, 16th- and 17th-century works include the Adoration of the Virgin by the Innocents by Poppi, and two rare paintings on terracotta by Giovan Battista Naldini. Other works include Saint John the Evangelist, one of the most important 14th-century Florentine sculptures, attributed to Simone Talenti, and a Crib by Marco della Robbia, which may have been placed near to the spot where children were abandoned. The delightful chiostri, where there are works by Andrea della Robbia and Antonio Rossellino, are also part of the complex. A plan to renovate and extend the museum area began in December 2008 with an international architectural competition and will continue for several years. The project will aim to associate the works of art housed in the museum more closely with the lives of the people who governed the Institute.

exhibition Animani by Mario Mariotti 29 November 2009-11 April 2010 Mario Mariotti, illustrator, graphic artist, and innovative communicator, defined himself as a “peripheral artist.” From his workshop in the Oltrarno district of Florence, his inspired and imaginative work gained international recognition. The exhibition presents the “body painting” created by Mariotti in the 1980s. With these works, Mariotti “embodied” his conception of art as an evolving experience to which everyone can contribute. The exhibition includes creative workshops where adults and children can create their very own “Animani.” open: from Monday to Friday 15.00-19.00, Saturday, Sunday and holidays 10.00-19.00 workshop hours (Saturday, Sunday and holidays) 11.0012.00, 15.00-16.00, 16.00-17.00, 17.00-18.00

Costruendo il Mudi: presentazione dei tabernacoli restaurati nel coretto 8 May-30 September 2010 The Mudi exhibits a series of tabernacles with devotional sculptures dating from the 18th and 19th centuries, in the collections of the Institute.

Piazza SS. Annunziata, 12 open: Monday to Sunday 10.00-19.00 closed: 1 January, 25 December

www.istitutodeglinnocenti.it

he Museum of Mathematics,“Il Giardino di Archimede,” or “Archimedes’ Garden,” is an absolute novelty, for Florence and the wider world; an institution without precedent devoted entirely to mathematics and its applications. “Il Giardino di Archimede” is anything but a conventional, static “museum”; rather, it is an interactive space that demands the active participation of its visitors, who are asked to carry out a series of experiments, both material, using the objects on exhibit, and virtual, at the computer. The museum, with its conference room and screening hall, also has (and on request, rents these out) four exhibitions: “Oltre il compasso: la geometria delle curve” (Beyond the Compass: The Geometry of Curves); “Pitagora e il suo teorema” (Pythagoras and his Theorem); “Un ponte sul Mediterraneo. Leonardo Pisano, la scienza araba e la rinascita della matematica in Occidente” (A Bridge over the Mediterranean. Leonardo Pisano, Arab Science and the Rebirth of Mathematics in the West); and “Aiutare la natura. Dalle Mecaniche di Galileo alla vita quotidiana” (Helping Nature. From Galileo’s Le Mecaniche to Daily Life).

Via San Bartolo a Cintoia, 19/a open: from Monday to Friday, 9.00-13.00; Sunday 15.00-19.00 closed: holidays and the month of August

www.math.unifi.it/archimede

he Synagogue of Florence, built in 1882, is considered one of the most beautiful examples of exotic Moorish style. The extraordinary green dome, reconstructed in 2006, is the only one in Florence covered in copper. Inside the Synagogue is a two floor museum founded in 1981, that offers an overview of the history of the Jewish Community over the centuries. Guided tours in the English are available every hour. A large memorial in the garden of the Temple lists the names of some of the Florentine Jews who were killed during the Second World War.

Via Farini, 6 open: from April to September 10.00-18.00, from October to March 10.00-15.00; Friday 10.00-14.00 closed: Saturday and Jewish holidays Exceptional openings upon request

8 May

“Amico Museo”

5 May Visit to the Richard Ginori Factory 1735, reservation required

8 May “L’esperto risponde” Answers from the expert: at the Museum’s site, historical and technical “lessons” on Richard Ginori

works on loan • Giò Ponti, Mani, porcelain and gold, 1935, e Bomboniera “Il Balletto”, porcelain and gold, 1926 in: Milan, Palazzo dell’Arte Triennale Design Museum, from 12 March 2009 to 15 April 2010 for the exhibition: Serie e Fuoriserie • Tabacchiera con scena di caccia all’orso e cammei in rilievo, polichrome porcelain, c. 1746 in: Florence, Palazzo Pitti, Museo degli Argenti, from 25 March to 27 June 2010 for the exhibition: Pregio e bellezza. Cammei e intagli dei Medici • Series of polichrome porcelain, white, blue and gold, 18th to 20th centuries in: Selb, Porzellanikon, from 24 April to 1 November 2010 for the exhibition: From a King’s dream to the mass-produced 300 years of European porcelain

This workshop will show the old technique of “stampino” as used in reproducing Ginori decor. Open to children between the ages of 6 and 14 accompanied by an adult. At the Museum’s site. Reservation required.

15 May “Decora il tuo piatto!” Decorate your own plate, workshop of the old technique of “stampino”. Open to children between the ages of 6 and 14 accompanied by an adult. At the Museum’s site.

• San Giovanni, white porcelain, c. 1750 in: Berlin, Ephraim Palais, from 9 May to 29 August 2010 for the exhibition: Fascination of Fragility. Masterpieces of European Porcelain • Gio Ponti, Mano con incrostazioni di fiori in rilievo, c. 1935 • Giovanni Gariboldi, Fiasca globulare con incrostazioni di fiori in rilievo, c. 1940 • Fioriera con figure femminili e rose fra i capelli, 1902 in: Rome, Casina delle Civette di Villa Torlonia, from 18 May to 26 September 2010 for the exhibition: I colori della rosa (provisional title)

new publications

Artisti per Doccia, Edited by Laura Casprini Gentile and Dora Liscia Bemporad, Firenze, Edifir, 2009

he complex of monumental buildings forming the Certosa del Galluzzo is situated on the summit of Monte Acuto, also known as Monte Santo, a conical shaped hill near to the town of Galluzzo, south of Florence. The monastery was built by the Florentine banker, Niccolò Acciaioli, a prominent figure in political and economic circles in the 14th century. Building work began in 1342 and continued over the centuries as the monastery was enriched with important works of art. The Gallery housed in Palazzo Acciaioli is now of particular interest and is decorated with frescoes by Pontormo. Originally occupied by the Carthusian order, in 1958 the Carthusian monks were succeeded by the Cistercians. The Certosa is still renowned for its distillery, library and restoration laboratory which specializes in the repair of books, and for the work of the Friends of the Certosa, who also publish a journal of the same name.

Via Buca di Certosa, 2, Galluzzo open: Tuesday-Saturday, 9.15-11.15 and 15.00-17.00 in summer, 9.15-11.15 and 15.00-16.15 in winter; Sunday, 15.00-17.00 in summer and 15.00-16.15 in winter.

www.cistercensi.info/certosadifirenze

he historic collections of the ancient Doccia ceramics factory are on show in the Museo Richard-Ginori, one of the finest examples of early-1960s Tuscan architecture: a rectilinear, unvarnished casing contrasting with the luminous, multiform ceramics it encloses. Those who go in search of this (very well) hidden treasure at the gates of Florence will find enormous sculptures in white porcelain, rare wax impressions of models by Foggini and Soldani Benzi, 18th-century fancy articles, majolica-ware garden seats, Liberty vases, ceramics signed by Gio Ponti, prototypes by wellknown designers, and so very much more. This is not to be missed by aficionados of the decorative arts and design. The Richard-Ginori name identifies the two dynasties that guided the enterprise to whose work the museum is devoted.

ounded by Canon Angelo Maria Bandini in 1795, the Museo Bandini was first housed in the church of Sant’Ansano. On his death the Canon left the museum to the Chapter of Fiesole and it is now located in an attractive little building, built for the purpose, immediately behind the cathedral in the early 20th century and designed by Giuseppe Castellucci. In the room on the ground floor some fine Della Robbia terracottas are exhibited (including the Effigy of a Young Man, known as Sant’Ansano by Andrea Della Robbia) as well as some fragments of classical sculptures, inlaid furniture and marble bas-relief sculptures. Displayed in the two rooms on the first floor are paintings and panel paintings by well-known artists (from Taddeo Gaddi to Nardo di Cione and Lorenzo Monaco) in addition to works dating from the 13th to the 17th century.

Viale Pratese, 31, Sesto Fiorentino open: Wednesday to Saturday 10.00-13.00, 14.00-18.00

www.museodidoccia.it

Via G. Dupré, 1, Fiesole open: from 1 to 31 October, from Wednesday to Monday 10.00-18.00; from 1 November to 28 February, from Thursday to Monday 10.00-16.00; from 1 to 31 March, from Wednesday to Monday 10.00-18.00; from 1 April to 30 September, from Wednesday to Monday 10.00-19.00

www.fiesolemusei.it

Mario Mariotti

Guided visits and workshops for families on the occasion of the Fiera di Primavera in Sesto Fiorentino 8-18 April 2010

he World Football/Soccer Championships held in Italy in 1990 provided the impetus for converting an old farmhouse, known as the “Rudere Podere Gignoro,” in the Coverciano area, to new use. The building is now the home of the new Football Museum, inaugurated on 22 May 2000 in the presence of the then Minister for Cultural Affairs and top Italian Football Federation and city officials. The museum, with its well-stocked historical documentation centre, promotes football as a national cultural and sports asset, and with its extraordinary collection of curiosities that have made the history of football, offers stimuli and input to the promotion of a new sports culture.

Viale Aldo Palazzeschi, 20, Coverciano open: weekdays 9.00-13.00, 16.00-18.00; Saturday 9.00-13.00 closed: Sunday

www.museodelcalcio.it

museo richard-ginori • certosa del galluzzo • museo bandini • football museum

activities

foreigners in florence

Florence has an extremely varied and lively range of foreign institutes and universities, which actively contribute to the city’s cultural life, whose existence is widely ignored by Florentines, a feature which we hope to change, if only to remind the residents of Florence of the strongly international vocation of the city they inhabit. The institutes’ individual programmes are extensive, diverse and constantly evolving. Not all of them have activities that are open to a general public, but those that do are welcome to send us information for publication. More precise and up-to-date information can be found on the website of each institute.

Dutch Institute for the European University History of Art Institute

Founded in 1958 the Dutch Institute for the History of Art has an extensive and specialized library with a prestigious collection of critical texts on the history of art and culture. The main areas of specialization are Italian art and the art of the Netherlands. Particular attention is devoted to artistic exchanges between northern and southern Europe. Viale Torricelli 5,

www.iuoart.org

activities

10 April International Symposium, ‘Michelangelo’s “Madonna and Child” in Bruges: Context and Reception’, in collaboration with Radboud University,

The European University Institute (EUI) is an international postgraduate teaching and research institute established in 1972 by the six founding Member States of the European Community to promote cultural and scientific development in the social sciences, law and humanities in a European perspective. Many important events relating to ethical and political issues are held, including lectures and seminars organized with high profile figures on the international scene. Badia Fiesolana Via dei Roccettini, 9 San Domenico di Fiesole

www.eui.eu

www.khi.fi.it

exhibition Natural artifizio - artifiziosa natura: Grottos of the Early Modern Age in Italy An Online Exhibition by the photo library of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz Max-Planck-Institut 22 February-13 June 2010 The online exhibition presents a selection of photographs from the Kunsthistorisches Archive dating for the most part to a photographic campaign conducted in Genoa in collaboration with Stephanie Hanke in 2006.

edited by Alyson Price

forthcoming publications

• Repertory of Dutch and Flemish Paintings in Italian Public Collections. Vol. III Piedmont, in 2 Tomes. Firenze, Centro Di, Summer 2010

New York University in Florence at La Pietra The Harvard University Villa Villa La Pietra is the seat of New York Center for Italian University's Florence programme. Renaissance Studies Bequeathed to NYU in 1994 by Sir

Villa I Tatti Via di Vincigliata, 26

www.itatti.it activities “Bernard Berenson Lectures” 13, 15 and 20 April This year’s distinguished lecturer is Caroline Elam, renowned expert on Florentine Renaissance art and architecture, and she will present three interrelated lectures on the subject of: “The Image of Florence in the Renaissance”.

recent publications

• Arnolfo’s Moment. Acts of an International Conference (Florence, Villa I Tatti, 26-27 May 2005), edited by David Friedman, Julian Gardner and Margaret Haines.

The Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, founded in 1897, is one of the oldest research institutions dedicated to the History of Art and Architecture in Italy. In addition to numerous individual research projects the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz provides a platform for larger long- and medium-term projects whose subject matter ranges from Late Antiquity to the Modern Age. The Institute's resources include the library with over 300,000 volumes, 940 ongoing journal subscriptions, and one of the most wideranging photographic libraries on Italian art, at the disposal of researchers from all over the world. The Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz is a unique, open platform for lively, international and interdisciplinary academic exchange. Via Giuseppe Giusti, 44

June ‘Translating the Past’, a workshop on Medieval and Renaissance Sources devoted to Art, History, and Literature will be held. As part of the workshop, lectures will alternate with visits to archives and libraries in Florence. Participating institutions: The Charles Singleton Center (Johns Hopkins University), Georgetown University at Villa Le Balze, The Institute at Palazzo Rucellai, Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo (Italian Historical Institute for the Middle Ages), the Dutch Institute for Art History, The Society for Renaissance Studies Villa I Tatti (The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies).

The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti is devoted to advanced study of the Italian Renaissance in all its aspects: the history of art; political, economic, and social history; the history of science, philosophy, and religion; and the history of literature and music.

Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz

Harold Acton, the Florentine study abroad campus consists of 5 historic villas and 57 acres of gardens and olive groves. Villa La Pietra, the Acton Collection, and the Garden are maintained as they were by the Acton family and serve as an inspiration to all who live and study on the campus. NYU organizes conferences and cultural events that are open to the public by invitation. See their website for detailed information.There are free guided tours of the Acton Collection and Garden open to the public by appointment, during the third week of April and the third week of October. Booking begins one month before each open week.

activities International Conference The Aesthetics of Marble: from Late Antiquity to the Present 27-29 May 2010 Interdisciplinary conference Ethik und Architektur 1-3 July 2010

Syracuse University in Florence

As one of the oldest study abroad programmes in Italy, Syracuse’s many years of experience and long-standing relationship with the Florentine community enable it to offer an extensive range of courses and cultural immersions. Syracuse University is housed in Villa Rossa, a Palazzo in Piazza Savonarola built in 1892 and purchased by the University in 1963. Piazza Savonarola, 15

www.syr.fi.it

Via dei Bruni, 27

www.nyu.edu/global/lapietra/index.html

recent publications • Sandro Botticelli and Herbert Horne: New Research, edited by Rab Hatfield, Syracuse University Press, 2009

Founded in 1917 to promote cultural exchange between Italy and the Englishspeaking world, the British Institute today offers a comprehensive programme of courses in the Italian language, the English language and history of art, as well as a wide range of cultural events. Public lectures take place each week on a Wednesday. The extensive library is open to the public by subscription. Lungarno Guicciardini, 9

www.britishinstitute.it

French Institute in Florence

The French Institute in Florence, the oldest in the world and established in 1907, is part of the French State and of the cultural network of the French Embassy in Italy. It is located in the 15th-century Palazzo Lenzi and for over a century it has constantly maintained an active cultural policy and developed its unique library and newspaper library. Piazza Ognissanti, 2

www.france-italia.it activities

dance

8th International Spring School 31 May to 5 June 2010 Sponsored by the Institut national d’histoire de l’art and the art history department of the Università degli Studi di Firenze.

c/o Ex Stazione Leopolda, Istituto Francese and other spaces - Info www.fabbricaeuropa.net 5-25 May 2010 Just as in previous years, the Fabbrica Europa festival reserves a special place for contemporary work coming from France. This year the highlight is dance from the “Ballet National de Marseille”, which presents a new work by Frédéric Flamand, the Algerian choreographer who lives in France, Nacera Belaza, and the choreographers Fabrice Lambert and Brice Leroux. In addition to this, French dance/performance/new technology groups, selected through the European project “Focus”, present their work.

cinema

activities

La France vue à travers l’œil de cinéastes contemporains 18 February-27 May 2010

Shakespeare Week, 19-23 April 2010 annual Shakespeare celebrations.

theatre

Bloomsday, 16 June celebration of the work of James Joyce.

foreigners in florence

British Institute of Florence The Harold Acton Library

Il Ponte di pietra 23-25 April 2010 Daniel Danis Compagnia Krypton Teatro Studio di Scandicci

Villa Finaly/Université de Paris

The Villa Finaly was left to the University of Paris by the Landau-Finaly family in 1953. The Villa is currently owned in common by the 13 Universities which now comprise the University of Paris. The property is administered by the Chancellerie des Universités, directed by the Recteur-Chancelier and the Vice-Chancelier of the Universities of Paris. University activities include seminars, lectures and conferences. Via Bolognese, 134 r

www.villafinaly.sorbonne.fr

US Study Abroad Progammes

The programmes listed all belong to AACUPI (Association of American College and University Programs in Italy). In each issue we will highlight cultural events open to the public, offered by these institutions. Associated Colleges of the Midwest www.acm.edu/ Bowling Green State University (SACI) www.saci-florence.org/ California State University International Program in Florence www.csufirenze.it/ Drake University Institute of Italian Studies Program in Florence (LDM) www.italyiis.com/ Fairfield University Florence Campus (FUA) www.fairfield.edu/ Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York, Florence Program (Polimoda) www3.fitnyc.edu/ Florida State University Florence Program www.international.fsu.edu/ Georgetown University Villa Le Balze www11.georgetown.edu/ Gonzaga University in Florence www.gonzaga.edu/ Harding University www.harding-firenze.org/ James Madison University Florence Programs Palazzo Capponi www.jmu.edu/international/ Kent State University, Florence Program www1.kent.edu/oia/StudyAbroad/Florence.cfm Marist College-LDM Program in Italy (LDM) www.marist.edu/academics/italy/ Miami University www.units.muohio.edu/lifelonglearning/

Middlebury College School in Italy www.middlebury.edu/ Ontario College of Art and Design www.ocad.ca Pepperdine University http://seaver.pepperdine.edu/ Richmond, the American International University in London - Florence Program www.richmond.ac.uk/undergraduates/florence.asp Roger Williams University (Institute at Palazzo Rucellai) www.palazzorucellai.org/ Rutgers University Study Abroad Program in Florence http://studyabroad.rutgers.edu/ Santa Reparata International School of Art www.santareparata.org/ Sarah Lawrence College Florence Program www.slc.edu/ Smith College www.smith.edu/studyabroad/florence.php Stanford University http://bosp.stanford.edu/florence/index.html Tulane University Junior Year Abroad in Florence http://global.tulane.edu/ University of Central Arkansas in Italy www.uca.edu/ University of Connecticut Florence Program (Institute at Palazzo Rucellai) http://studyabroad.uconn.edu/ University of Michigan - University of Wisconsin Duke University www.unimwd.it/ University of Minnesota Florence Program www.istc.umn.edu/ University of New Haven in Florence www.newhaven.edu/exped/studyabroad/26596/ Washington University School of Art http://samfoxschool.wustl.edu/about/experience/studyabroad

Studio Art Centers International (SACI) Exhibition From June 28 to July 30, the SACI Gallery at the Palazzo dei Cartelloni will showcase the prints of Italian artist Guido Colucci (1877-1949). SACI has received a donation of over 100 zinc plates by Colucci, a pupil of Giovanni Fattori. A selected group of prints from the plates will be featured at the exhibition. Palazzo dei Cartelloni Via Sant'Antonino, 11 www.saci-florence.org/

The Institute at Palazzo Rucellai Lectures May “The Holy Sepulchre: the Rucellai Family and their Pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the1400s” Professor Franco Cardini June Translating the Past: A Workshop on Medieval and Renaissance Sources devoted to Art, History, and Literature Via della Vigna Nuova, 18 www.palazzorucellai.org

children

art

Sunday Workshops

The Time Machine Istituto e Galileo Museum

Palazzo Strozzi

Palazzo Vecchio The Museo dei Ragazzi di Firenze (Florence Children’s Museum) is a collection of educational projects promoted by the municipality and offering an array of learning and cultural opportunities for different target groups. Museums participating in the project are: the Museum of Palazzo Vecchio and the ‘Quartieri Monumentali,’ the Brancacci Chapel in the Santa Maria del Carmine complex, the ‘Firenze com’era’ Historical and Topographical Museum, and the Leonardo Museum in Vinci. The Museo dei Ragazzi offers educational museum itineraries and more than forty different activities in and around the various museums, each lasting 75 minutes and all using drama, multimedia and hands-on interactive material.

The exhibitions at Palazzo Strozzi are designed with the family in mind. This means that every exhibition offers not only activities for children of all ages, but also special signage for children along the exhibition itinerary. Palazzo Strozzi organises guided ‘dialogue’ visits to the current exhibitions, featuring indepth theme exploration and differentiated itineraries. For children from 4 to 11, every Sunday from 10.00 to 12.00

And more... ‘Family Programmes in English’: every Saturday at 11.00, a special appointment, in English, for children from 7 to 12.

(Institute and Museum of the History of Science) As part of its “Visite al Museo con la famiglia” (Family Day at the Museum) project, the Institute and Museum of the History of Science offers ‘La macchina del tempo,’ Sunday openings when visitors will be accompanied through the Palazzo Castellani exhibition rooms by guides in period costume. Reservation required. Until 9 May 2010, every Sunday from 10.00 to 18.00

aprilaprilaprilaprilmaymaymaymayju ...and for presenting contemporary art and the latest techniques to the very young, there’s Laboratorio Novecento organised by the Uffizi Gallery in co-operation with the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi (see page 4). POSTPONED!

Happy Birthday at the Museum! Museo e Istituto Fiorentino di Preistoria “Paolo Graziosi” (Museum and Institute of Prehistory) The Museum organises made-to-order birthday parties for budding archaeologists: an entertaining and constructive way to celebrate the present and the past. From May to September

activities in the museo dei ragazzi

Palazzo Vecchio Quartieri Monumentali •Animali narranti/Animal Storytellers Ercole raccontato dalla civetta di Atene ⋅ La favola della tartaruga con la vela ⋅ La favola profumata della natura dipinta ⋅ La meravigliosa e segretissima scala del duca Gualtieri ⋅ La storia del furto nello Studiolo di Francesco I ⋅ La storia del primo viaggio intorno al mondo •Duca Cosimo e Duchessa Eleonora La favola profumata della natura dipinta ⋅ Vita quotidiana alla Reggia ⋅ Vita quotidiana da Principe •Eleonora di Toledo Eleonora di Toledo: abiti per modellare il corpo ⋅ Invito alla Reggia di Cosimo •Igiene/Hygiene Storia della schiava ottomana Asmà •Creature mostruose/ Monstrous Creatures Le grottesche, pittura dei sogni ⋅ Mostri e nemici nelle fatiche di Ercole •Il mondo della Natura/The World of Nature Il medico e la Granduchessa; salute e

malattia nella Firenze dei miasmi e degli umori ⋅ La favola profumata della natura dipinta •Cosimo I de’ Medici Consiglieri del Duca Cosimo I ⋅ Invito alla Reggia di Cosimo ⋅ L’abito come instrumentum regni in Cosimo I ⋅ Vita quotidiana da Principe •Sala delle Carte Geografiche/The Map Room Misurare la terra nell’età delle scoperte ⋅ Terra tonda o terra piatta ⋅ Tutto il mondo in una stanza •Vita di corte/Life at Court Le nozze della principessa Lucrezia. Ovvero del matrimonio nelle classi dominanti ⋅ Storia della balia Cassandra e di Francesca da Settignano. Ovvero del matrimonio nelle classi popolari ⋅ Storia della monaca Costanza e della vedova Dianora. Ovvero del matrimonio mistico •Tecniche artistiche/Artistic Techniques Disegnare con la seta: simboli medicei in serigrafia ⋅ Storia e riconoscimento della pittura in fresco ⋅ Tra arte e scienza. Magnifici apparati prospettici

•La storia del Palazzo/The

History of Palazzo Vecchio Storia e riconoscimento della pittura in fresco ⋅ Visita alla Reggia guidati da Giorgio Vasari

Cappella Brancacci •L’occhio di Masaccio/ Masaccio’s Eye and the Frescoes of the Brancacci Chapel Museo Storico Topografico “Firenze com’era” •Vivere nella Florentia romana/Life in Roman Florence •Vivere nell’età dei Comuni/Life in the Age of the Communes •Vivere nella Firenze granducale/Life in the Florence of the Grand Duke Museo Leonardiano Di Vinci •Lo sguardo di Leonardo/Leonardo’s Gaze The activities, most of which are scheduled from October to May, are conducted in Italian, English, French, or Spanish.

calendar april-september 2010 Sundays at the Museum

Stibbert Museum

Il Giardino di Archimede - Museo per la Matematica Every first Sunday of the month, from October to May, an introduction for the youngest of visitors (and adults) to the magical world of mathematics: guided tours and activities, events, and mathematical games. Also of note is the series for children entitled ‘Il mondo dei numeri’ (The World of Numbers): simple and more complicated stories that encourage young readers to explore important events in the history of mathematics. Two volumes are already in the bookshops: Uri il piccolo Sumero and Ahmose e i 999.999 lapislazzuli.

Just for children: visits to the collections of Western, Islamic, and Japanese costumes and arms and armour are even more fascinating when your guide is a great historical figure, such as Suleiman the Magnificent or Giovanni dalle Bande Nere.

Obladì. Children’s Saturdays at the Oblate Library

children

workshops Discover a wealth of new stories to tell and to listen to in the library. Professionally organised readings, performances and creative workshops. Every Saturday from December to May

From Monday to Wednesday from 10.00 to 14.00, and from Friday to Sunday from 10.00 to 18.00.

Every 1st Sunday of the month from October to May

unejunejunejunejulyjulyjulyjulyaugusttaugustaugustseptember Jewish Museum Get-togethers and special visits for children and parents on the last Sunday of the month, reservation only. On request, itineraries to important Jewish sites in Florence and Siena.

Family Museum Visits Polo Museale Fiorentino Following the successful 2008 edition, the Education Department, supported by a generous contribution from the Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze, is once again offering the ‘Famiglie al Museo’ project: a series of initiatives in the Polo Museale Fiorentino museums, where the great art of the city is placed in its historical context by experts. There are various themed itineraries to choose from.

architecture walks

hese architecture walks offer glimpses of the city just within, on and beyond the viali, the boulevards circling the city: the walks wind around areas of the contemporary city through ‘unmonumental’ scraps of the urban fabric, unknown to tourists. This is today’s city, with its hints of what it will be and what it could have been. The stops on route are not chosen on the basis of any stylistic criteria or critical judgement; instead, they could be said to represent co-ordinates, either because they identify episodes in the history of architecture, or because their impact, visual and otherwise, has been important.

In and Around Piazza Beccaria

When Florence was, for a brief period (1865-71), the capital of Italy, Giuseppe Poggi was given the task of demolishing the city walls in order to build the ‘viali di circonvallazione’, the boulevards that circle the city, in their place: wide, tree-shaded roads, after the Parisian example, linking the monumental parks and piazzas that surround the old city gates, the only ‘soldiers’ still standing from the ranks that held the city’s defensive perimeter. Once barriers, marking the way into and out of the walled city, each gate has now become the focus of a more complex urban dynamic in which the spokes of streets converge on the new hubs, the piazzas, that upset conventional orientation and cancel out any clear definition between the ancient and the modern city. According to Poggi’s plans, the so-called Pratoni della Zecca Vecchia – the broad park area that stretched from Piazza Beccaria (4) to the Arno – were to have remained undeveloped: an extensive green parterre on a triangular plan, its vertex at the centre of the square (then called Piazza alla Croce), its sides diverging towards the river to trace the chalk-lines for what are now the Viale Amendola and Viale Giovine Italia boulevards; the base marked by the Terme Fiorentine building on the river. Despite Poggi’s protests, the parterre was soon occupied by the neo-medieval mass of the Caserma Baldissera (9) and other military constructions. The Casa della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio (GIL building), added in the 1930s, was razed to make way for the Archivio di Stato (State Archives) (2). Poggi was also the designer of the buildings that mark the bowl of Piazza Beccaria. As the 20th

century progressed, the boulevards, by then given over to motorised traffic, saw their edges fill out with impressive functional buildings, including the headquarters of La Nazione newspaper (3) on Viale Giovine Italia and the ACI (Italian Automobile Club) building (8) on Viale Amendola. The area behind Piazza Beccaria instead retains the residential shading of the 19th-century plan. In the early 1900s it was the area of the villini – a type of small, free-standing, middle class residential construction – notable examples are in Adolfo Coppedèʼs eclectic style (6) and Giovanni Michelazziʼs Liberty (5), and the home-studio of Galileo Chini (7), an artist who, like others of the time (Angiolo Vannetti, Sirio Tofanari), elected to live in what was then called the ‘Piagentina’ quarter. There were a growing number of small workshops, including Chini’s Manifattura Arte della Ceramica (in Via Arnolfo, founded in 1896) or the Vetreria Polloni (in Via Fra Giovanni Angelico 71, founded in 1919 and still extant).

Curiosities: In 1876, the former Piazza alla Croce was dedicated to Cesare Beccaria, author of the treatise Dei delitti e delle pene (1764), one of the best-known Italian Enlightenment texts. This celebrated Pietro Leopoldo’s promulgation of the reform of the penal code on 30 November 1786 that ended capital punishment, a decision made under the influence of Beccaria’s ideas. Tuscany thus became the first state in the world to abolish the death penalty. The decision to name the square after Beccaria was prompted by precise historical reasons: since the Middle Ages, the area outside the city walls between the Torre della Zecca Vecchia, now standing alone in Piazza Piave, and Porta alla Croce was the site of the gallows from which convicted criminals were hung. Under guard, the condemned were escorted from the

1 Le Murate

5 Villini by Michelazzi

(State Archives)

Via Scipione Ammirato 99 and 101 construction: 1910-11 and 1907 design: Giovanni Michelazzi

Viale Giovanni Amendola construction: 1977-88 design: Italo Gamberini, with Loris Macci, Rino Vernuccio, Franco Bonaiuti Villino Ravazzini

Villino Broggi-Caraceni

3 La Nazione

7 The Home-Studio of Galileo Chini

Via del Ghirlandaio 52 and 56 construction: 1909 and 1914 design: Ugo Giusti

The entrance to the studio (no. 52) is highlighted with sculptural inlays by Umberto Pinzauti. The panel painting by Chini himself, above the door; like the Liberty graffiti that adorned the façade of the house (no. 56), is now illegible. The studio, already subjected to a number of modifications in the interior by the artist, was sold in 1960 to the Salesian monks, who converted it into a school which destroyed the original spaces.

8 ACI Headquarters Building

Viale Amendola 36 construction: 1959-61 design: Emilio Brizzi, with Domenico Cardini, Giorgio G. Gori, Rodolfo Raspollini

The uniformity of the layout of Villa Ravazzini stands in counterpoint to the heightened interaction structural and decorative elements that characterise the slightly later Villino Broggi-Caraceni, which speaks to the architect’s more mature appreciation of the Art Nouveau aesthetic. The ceramics inlaid in the façade were made to Michelazzi’s designs by Galileo Chini’s factory.

The building was commissioned by the Italian Automobile Club in 1958, and was completed in 1961. Considered one of the most significant creations of 1950s functionalist architecture in Italy, the building was applauded in national and international architecture journals of the time, celebrating its successful union of structural clarity and attention to formal criteria.

6 Casa Antonini

9 Caserma Baldissera

The villino home-studio commissioned by Raffaello Franciolini was disfigured by the addition of a floor in 1958 and further mangled when the interior was subdivided into six apartments. The decorative elements on the façade are characteristic of Coppedè’s idiosyncratic acceptance of the Liberty style, showing strong points of continuity with 1800s eclecticism. The pictorial decoration is by Galileo Chini.

The main neo-Gothic 19th-century building, is in the form of a turreted fortress, mirroring its military function. Today 10 buildings, grouped around a parade ground, occupy an entire large city block bounded by the Lungarno, Viale Giovine Italia, Viale Duca degli Abruzzi, and Viale Giovanni Amendola. After World War II, the Caserma became the headquarters of the Comando Regione Carabinieri Toscana.

Via dell’Orcagna 51-55 construction: 1907 design: Adolfo Coppedè

Headquarters

Viale Giovine Italia construction: 1961-66 design: Pierluigi Spadolini

Antonio Campani, Guida della città di Firenze ornata di pianta e vedute, Firenze 1822.

Poggi planned the façades of the buildings which circle the piazza, a sort of Florentine Étoile, almost as an ellipse, arranged around one of the old gates to the city, the Porta alla Croce. The layout is in a grand neo-Renaissance Classical style, a re-visiting of the Bramante or Raphael type palazzo. The upper stories were to be the homes of a “very comfortable” class, and the ground level was turned over to “regulated and orderly” business.

2 Archivio di Stato

The building is emblematic of Spadolini’s research into prefabricated structures and the expressive potential of the application of the logic of industrial mass-production to architecture. The standard blocks create perspectives in a quickstep rhythm of repeating elements and yet allude to the Florentine tradition in their use of pietraforte yellow-ochre sandstone.

Bargello (and, later, from the Carcere delle Stinche) prison along Via di San Giuseppe, Via delle Casine, and, finally, Via dei Malcontenti to exit the city through Porta alla Giustizia (razed by Poggi) before mounting the steps to the scaffold. The gallows were originally erected in the area now occupied by the Caserma Baldissera but were later moved to the area outside Porta alla Croce, more or less at the corner of Viale Gramsci and Via Colletta. Even the parterre designed by Poggi in some ways recalled the macabre function of this area of the city: the ‘optical sight’ constituted by the triangular open space created a visual, as well as symbolic, sight-line between Porta alla Croce and the Oltrarno quarter, focusing attention on Monte alle Croci. Tradition has it that after his decapitation at the foot of the gate, the early Florentine martyr San Miniato arose and with his severed head under his arm set out for the hill across the river, where the basilica bearing his name was later built. Further attempts at eradicating the memory of the area’s ‘vocation’ have included the adaptation of Santa Verdiana and Le Murate (1), former convents within the Renaissance city limits on Via dell’Agnolo and backing onto the walls (and later the boulevards), which in the second half of the 19th century became prisons for women and for men respectively, and were used as such until 1985, when prisoners were transferred to the new Sollicciano prison. These old structures have been subject to radical renovation work; one (Santa Verdiana) now houses lecture halls for the School of Architecture, while the other (Le Murate) contains around 70 low-income apartments and lively cultural centres. From structures limiting freedom, these are now vital locations serving the contemporary city.

construction: c. 1865-74 design: Giuseppe Poggi

The restoration of the former prison has proceeded by leaps and bounds since 1998: there are now upwards of 70 apartments, two inner squares, offices, services, and pedestrian routes that give access to the previously impregnable block. The complex has become a new international cultural centre, with a literary coffee-house, workshops for young artists, and guest-quarters for bloggers who, having encountered censorship in their countries of origin, now find both a ‘virtual’ and a real welcome at Le Murate.

Casa della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio

Giuseppe Poggi, Prospettiva da Piazza Beccaria all’Arno nella veduta di N. Sanesi, c. 1865

4 Piazza Beccaria

Via dell’Agnolo construction: since 1998 design: to guidelines by Renzo Piano

Echoing the technological slant and the mechanistic inspiration of a certain type of early 1970s architecture, modelled on Paris’s Centre Pompidou, the building stands on the site occupied by the Casa della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, 1933-35, by Aurelio Cetica and Fiorenzo de Reggi. Razed in 1977, it was one of the most avantgarde covered sports facilities of its time in Florence.

edited by Emilia Daniele

foto F. Anichini

Lungarno Pecori Giraldi 4 construction: 1894-1909, 1931 design: Capitano Cecchi, Corps of Military Engineers

I Bagni fiorentini previsti da Giuseppe Poggi

architecture walks

books about town www.artlibri.it Via dei Fossi, 32r, Firenze

a selection of both Italian and foreign new books involving Florentine history of art and architecture. Edited by Arte&Libri

Agnolo Gaddi e la Leggenda di Santa Croce di Costanza Cipollaro, presentazione di Antonino Caleca. Cartei &Bianchi, FolignoCampi Bisenzio 2009. Alla Riscoperta delle Chiese di Firenze. 6: Santa Trinita a cura di Timothy Verdon. Centro Di, Firenze 2009. Alla scoperta del Maestro di Marradi di Livietta Galeotti Pedulli. Polistampa, Firenze 2009. Amore e Guerra nel Tardo Rinascimento. Le lettere di Livia Vernazza e Don Giovanni de’ Medici a cura e con un saggio di Brendam Dooley. Polistampa, Firenze 2009. Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici, Elettrice Palatina. Atti delle celebrazioni (20052008) a cura di Anita Valentini. Polistampa, Firenze 2009. Gli Anni di Firenze testi di A. Barbero, F. Cardini, A. Prosperi, M. Viroli, P. Rossi, G. Ricuperati. Laterza, Roma-Bari 2009. Appunti per un manuale di storia e di teoria del restauro. Dispense per gli studenti di Marco Ciatti, con la collaborazione di Francesca Martusciello. Edifir, Firenze 2009. Ardengo negli anni discontinui di Leopoldo Paciscopi. Pentalinea, Prato 2009. Arnolfo’s Moment. Acts of an International Conference (Florence, Villa I Tatti, May 26-27, 2005) a cura di David Friedman, Julian Gardner, Margaret Haines. Olschki, Firenze 2009. Art of Renaissance Florence 1400-1600 di Loren Partridge. University of California Press, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London 2009. L’arte dell’eccellenza. La collezione glittica medicea e la sua fortuna dal XV al XVIII secolo (Firenze, Museo degli Argenti di Palazzo Pitti 2010) a cura di Ornella Casazza e Riccardo Gennaioli. Sillabe, Livorno 2010. L’arte vinse la natura. Buontalenti e il disegno di architettura da Michelangelo a Guarini di Amelio Fara. Olschki, Firenze 2010. Le arti a Firenze tra Gotico e Rinascimento (Aosta, Museo Archeologico Regionale 2009) a cura di Giovanna Damiani. Giunti, Firenze 2009. Atti delle Giornate di Studi sul Caravaggismo e il Naturalismo nella Toscana del Seicento a cura di Pierluigi Carofano. Bandecchi & Vivaldi, Pontedera 2009. Il barocco informale di Sergio Scatizzi. Opere 20002009 a cura di Giuseppe Cantelli e Simonella Condemi. Sillabe, Livorno 2009. Il bel cimitero. Santa Maria Novella in Florenz, 12791348. Grabmaler, Architektur und Gesellschaft di Frithjof Schwartz. Deutscher Kunstverlag, BerlinMunchen 2009. Bollettino della Galleria degli Uffizi 2008 a cura di Federica Chezzi e Serena Nocentini. Centro Di, Firenze 2009.

Botticelli: Likeness, Myth, Devotion a cura di Andreas Schumacher. Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2009. Botticelli nel suo tempo introduzione e cura di Cristina Acidini, schede di William Dello Russo. Electa, Milano 2009. Catalogo dei pittori fiorentini del ’600 e ’700. Biografie e opere di Sandro Bellesi. Polistampa, Firenze 2009. La cattedrale di Fiesole. Storia, arte e simbologia di Emanuele Romoli e Diego Visone. Servizio Editoriale, San Giovanni Valdarno 2009.

Firenze scienza: le collezioni, i luoghi e i personaggi dell’Ottocento. (Firenze, Palazzo Medici Riccardi 2009-2010) a cura di Mara Miniati. Polistampa, Firenze 2009. Florence 1900. The Quest of Arcadia di Bernd Roeck. Yale University Press, New Haven-London 2009. Francesca Caccini at the Medici Court. Music and the Circulation of Power di Suzanne G. Cusick, prefazione di Catharine R. Stimpson. University of Chicago Press, Chicago-London 2009.

Cellini, Bandinelli, Ammannati. La fontana del Nettuno in piazza della Signoria a Firenze Skira, Milano 2009.

From Florence to the Mediterranean and Beyond. Essays in Honour of Anthony Molho a cura di Diego Ramada Curto, Eric R. Dursteler, Julius Kirshner. Olschki, Firenze 2009.

Centro di Documentazione del Parco Mediceo di Pratolino – Villa Demidoff a cura di Giovanni Valdré. Franco Angeli, Milano 2009.

Il Gabinetto di Fisica dell’Istituto TecnicoToscano. Guida alla visita di Paolo Brenni. Polistampa, Firenze 2009.

Cesare Guasti e la Cultura Toscana dell’Ottocento a cura di Rodolfo Abati. Cantagalli, Siena 2009.

Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi. Inventario Generale delle Stampe, II: Storia di una collezione di Miriam Fileti Mazza. Olschki, Firenze 2009.

Charles Doudelet, pittore, incisore e critico d’arte. Dal “Leonardo” a “l’Eroica” a cura di Francesca Cagianelli, apparati documentari a cura di Francesca Luseroni. Olschki, Firenze 2009. La Chiesa di San Marco a Firenze. Una lunga stagione di restauri a cura di Vincenzo Vaccaro. Polistampa, Firenze 2009. La Città a Pezzi/Pezzi di Città. Distacchi lapidei a Firenze (1977-2009) a cura di Francesco Gurrieri. Polistampa, Firenze 2009. Il comune di Firenze tra Due e Trecento. Partecipazione politica e assetto istituzionale di Piero Gualtieri. Olschki, Firenze 2009. Con D’Annunzio alla Capponcina di Benigno Palmerio, a cura di Marco Marchi. Le Lettere, Firenze 2009. Conservation Legacies of the Florence Flood of 1966. Proceedings of the Symposium Commemorating the 40th a cura di Helen Spande. Archetype, London 2009. Emil Bosshard. Painting conservator (1945-2006). Essay by Friends and Colleagues a cura di M. de Peverelli, M. Grassi, H.C. von Imhoff Centro Di, Firenze 2010. L’esercizio illegale dell’astronomia: Max Ernst, Iliazd, Wilhelm Tempel. (Firenze, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale 2009) a cura di Lucia Chimirri, Massimo Mazzoni, Simone Bianchi e Antonella Gasperini. Centro Di, Firenze 2009. Il fasto e la ragione. Arte del Settecento a Firenze. (Firenze, Galleria degli Uffizi 2009) Giunti, Firenze 2009. Federigo e la bottega degli Angeli a cura di Rosanna Caterina Proto Pisani e Francesca Baldry. Sillabe, Livorno 2009. Fiori dipinti, fiori in giardino. (Firenze, Galleria dell’Accademia 2009) a cura di Francesca Ciaravino. Sillabe, Livorno 2009. Firenze out di Carlo Cresti. Pontecorboli, Firenze 2009.

The Great Flood of Florence, 1966. A Photographic Essay di Swietlan Nicholas Kraczyna, a cura di Dorothea Barrett. Syracuse University in Florence, Firenze 2009. Le guerre del Paradiso. I restauri di Bruno Bearzi, 1943-1966 di Paolo De Anna e Lidia Del Duca Polistampa, Firenze 2009. Le illustrazioni in Italia tra Otto e Novecento. Libri a figure, dinamiche culturali e visive di Giorgio Bacci. Olschki, Firenze 2009. Incunaboli Moreniani. Catalogo delle edizioni del XV secolo a cura di Simona Periti. Olschki, Firenze 2009. Innocente e calunniato. Federico Zuccari (1539/401609) e le vendette dell’artista a cura di Cristina Acidini e Elena Capretti. Giunti, Firenze 2009. Leonard de Vinci & la France di Carlo Pedretti, con la collaborazione di Margherita Melani. Cartei & Bianchi, Campi Bisenzio 2009. Machiavelli e gli “Svizzeri”. E altre “machiavellerie” filosofiche concernenti la natura, la guerra, lo stato, la società, l’etica e la civiltà di Luigi Zanzi, prefazione di Marino Viganò. Casagrande, Bellinzona 2009. Malerbildhauer der italienischen Renaissance. Von Brunelleschi bis Michelangelo di Eva Hanke. Michael Imhof, Petersburg 2009. Medicea. Rivista interdisciplinare di studi medicei, 4 (ottobre 2009) Centro Di, Firenze 2009. Michelangelo alle corti di Niccolò Ridolfi e Cosimo I di Giorgio Costa. Bulzoni, Roma 2009. Moda fra analogie e dissonanze. (Firenze, Galleria del Costume di Palazzo Pitti 2010) a cura di Caterina Chiarelli. Sillabe, Livorno 2010. Monna Lisa. La ‘Gioconda’ del Magnifico Giuliano di Josephine Rogers Mariotti. Polistampa, Firenze 2009.

Il Museo dell’Opera di Santa Croce a Firenze di Ludovica Sebregondi. Mandragora, Firenze 2009. Museo di Storia Naturale dell’Università degli Studi di Firenze. Guida alla visita delle Sezioni a cura di Fausto Barbagli e Giovanni Pratesi. Polistampa, Firenze 2009. Museo Stefano Bardini. I bronzetti e gli oggetti d’uso in bronzo di Tommaso Rago, a cura di Antonella Nesi, prefazione di Alvar González-Palacios. Centro Di, Firenze 2009. “Non Lasciar Vivere la Malefica”. Le streghe nei trattati e nei processi (secoli XIV-XVII) a cura di Dianora Corsi e Matteo Duni. Firenze University Press, Firenze 2008. Officine del Nuovo. Sodalizi fra letterati, artisti ed editori nella cultura italiana fra Rifroma e Controriforma. Atti del Simposio a cura di Harald Hendrix e Paolo Procaccioli. Vecchiarelli, Roma 2008. L’opera del Duomo di Firenze 1285-1370. Traduzione dell’edizione originale del 1959 di Andreas Grote, prefazione di Adriano Peroni. Olschki, Firenze 2009. L’Oratorio di Santa Caterina all’Antella e i suoi pittori. (Ponte a Ema, Bagno a Ripoli, Oratorio di Santa Caterina 2009) a cura di Angelo Tartuferi. Mandragora, Firenze 2009. Il paesaggio disegnato. John Constable e i maestri inglesi nella raccolta Horne di Elisabetta Nardinocchi e Matilde Casati. Mandragora, Firenze 2009. Paesaggi toscani nelle immagini della Fototeca italiana. (Firenze, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi 2009) a cura di Marilena Tamassia. Sillabe, Livorno 2009.

La Pittura del Seicento a Firenze. Indice degli artisti e delle loro opere di Francesca Baldassari. Robilant+Voena, Torino 2009. Plautilla Nelli (1524- 1588). The Painter- Prioress of Renaissance Florence a cura di Jonathan K. Nelson. Syracuse University in Florence, Firenze 2008. Politica e cultura nella Firenze cosimiana. Studi su Benedetto Varchi di Salvatore Lo Re. Vecchiarelli, Manziana 2008. Politica e pensiero politico nell’Italia del Rinascimento. Dallo Stato territoriale al Machiavelli di Riccardo Fubini. Edifir, Firenze 2009. Il polittico di Giotto nella Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna. Nuove letture a cura di Diego Cauzzi e Claudio Seccaroni. Centro Di, Firenze 2009. Poliziano e l’ambiente mediceo di Paolo Orvieto. Salerno editore, Roma 2009. Porcellane e maioliche a Doccia. La fabbrica dei marchesi Ginori: i primi cento anni di Alessandro Biancalana. Polistampa, Firenze 2009. Relazione sui danni sofferti a causa della guerra dal patrimonio artistico monumentale di Firenze [1946] di Guido Morozzi, a cura di Claudio Paolini. Polistampa, Firenze 2009. Repertorio della pittura fiorentina del Seicento. Aggiornamento di Giuseppe Cantelli. Bandecchi & Vivaldi, Pontedera 2009. La Repubblica di Firenze fra XIV e XV secolo. Istituzioni e lotte politiche nel nascente stato territoriale fiorentino di Laura De Angelis. Nardini, Firenze 2009.

Stefano Bardini e Wilhelm Bode. Mercanti e connaisseur fra Ottocento e Novecento di Valerie Niemeyer Chini, scritti introduttivi di Cristina Acidini e Cristina De Benedictis. Polistampa, Firenze 2009. La Stella e la Porpora. Il corteo di Benozzo e l’enigma del Virgilio Riccardiano. Atti del Convegno di Studi-Firenze, 17 maggio a cura di Giovanna Lazzi e Gerhard Wolf, redazione di Viviana Guarino. Polistampa, Firenze 2009. Storia dei musei naturalistici fiorentini di Brunetto Chiarelli e Alberto Simonetta. Firenze University Press, Firenze 2008. Sulle tracce dei tabernacoli restaurati. Storia e curiosità fiorentine di Doretta Ermini e Chiara Sestini. Polistampa, Firenze 2009. Il Teatro di Niobe. La rinascita agli Uffizi d’una sala regia a cura di Antonio Natali e Antonella Romualdi. Giunti, Firenze 2009. Telemaco Signorini e la pittura europea Mostra e catalogo a cura di Giuliano Matteucci, Fernando Mazzocca e Carlo Sisi. Marsilio, Venezia 2009. Il tesoro liturgico dell’ospedale di Santa Maria Nuovo di Firenze. (Firenze, Ospedale di Santa Maria Nuova 2009) a cura di Mirella Branca, Cristina De Benedictis, Esther Diana e Mara Miniati. Polistampa, Firenze 2009. Ti presento la famiglia Medici. I ritratti medicei della Serie Aulica agli Uffizi di Patrizia Vezzosi. Alinea, Firenze 2009.

Il restauro dei materiali tessili a cura di Marco Ciatti, Susanna Conti Centro Di, Firenze 2010.

La Toscana dai Lorena al Fascismo. Mezzo secolo storiografia nel cinquantenario della “Rassegna storica toscana” a cura di Flavio Conti e Romano Paolo Coppini. Polistampa, Firenze 2009.

Rosai: l’ombra nascosta dentro di Giovanni Faccenda. Masso delle Fate, Signa 2009.

Il velo della Gioconda. Leonardo segreto di Renzo Manetti. Polistampa, Firenze 2009.

Palazzo Strozzi Sacrati. Storia, protagonisti e restauri a cura di Giuseppe Cruciani Fabozzi. Giunti, Firenze 2009.

Sandro Botticelli and Herbert Horne. New Research a cura di Rab Hatfield. Syracuse University in Florence, Firenze 2009.

Villa Corsini a Castello a cura di Antonella Romualdi, testi di B. Arbeid, G. Bevilacqua, A. Godoli e S. Gori. Polistampa, Firenze 2009.

Paradise of Exiles. The Anglo-American Gardens of Florence di Katie Campbell. Frances Lincoln, London 2009.

Santa Maria Novella a Firenze. Algoritmi della scolastica per l’architettura di Maria Teresa Bartoli. Edifir, Firenze 2009.

Partire partirò, partir bisogna. Firenze e la Toscana nelle campagne napoleoniche (1793-1815) di Paolo Coturri, Gianni Doni, Stefano Pratesi, Daniele Vergari. Sarnus, Firenze 2009.

Santi poeti navigatori… Capolavori dai depositi degli Uffizi. “I mai visti” IX. (Firenze, Galleria degli Uffizi 2009-2010) mostra e catalogo a cura di Francesca de Luca. Polistampa, Firenze 2009.

Percorsi di storia per le vie del Galluzzo e di Pozzolatico. Gli antichi popoli di Santa Lucia a Massapagani, San Felice a Ema e Santo Stefano di Alessandra Martinuzzi e Guido Salvadori. Essegi, Firenze 2009.

Scientific Examination for the Investigation of Paintings. A Handbook for Conservatorrestorers a cura di D. Pinna, M. Galeotti, R. Mazzeo. Centro Di, Firenze 2009.

Il Palazzo Magnifico. Palazzo Medici Riccardi a Firenze a cura di Simonetta Merendoni e Luigi Ulivieri. Allemandi, Torino 2009.

Pieter de Witte (Pietro Candido). Un pittore del Cinquecento tra Volterra e Monaco a cura di Mariagiulia Burresi e Alessandro Cecchi. Silvana, Cinisello Balsamo 2009.

Scrivere la pittura. La “funzione Longhi” nella letteratura italiana di Andrea Mirabile. Longo, Ravenna 2009. Il sorriso della Sfinge. L’eredità del mondo antico nelle miniature riccardiane. (Firenze, Biblioteca Riccardiana 2009) a cura di Giovanna Lazzi. Polistampa, Firenze 2009.

Villa Medicea di Poggio a Caiano. Museo della Natura Morta. Catalogo dei dipinti a cura di Stefano Casciu, testi di Stefano Casciu e Marco Chiarini. Sillabe, Livorno 2009. Una visita al signor Berenson. Scritti critici e altri diletti di Roberto Papi, a cura di Leonardo Papi, introduzione di Antonio Paolucci. Franche Tirature, Lucca 2009. Vivere Firenze… Il Quartiere 2. Guarlone, Gignoro, San Salvi, Coverciano, Ponte a Mensola, Settignano di Bettino Gerini. Aster Italia, Firenze 2009.