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Poste Italiane s.p.a. - Spedizione in Abbonamento Postale - D.L. 353/2003 (conv. in L. 27/02/2004 n° 46) art. 1, comma 2, DCB Firenze In caso di mancato recapito inviare a Firenze CMP per la restituzione al mittente previo pagamento resi
Taddeo Landini, Allegory of Winter Florence, ponte Santa Trinita photo Francesca Anichini
n.8 autumn-winter 2013-2014
10,00 €
a half-yearly magazine on the arts
contents
8• autumn-winter 2013-2014 The Uffizi The Uffizi Department of Prints and Drawings The Accademia Orsanmichele Palazzo Pitti San Marco Museum Santa Croce Monumental Complex Opificio delle Pietre Dure The Bargello Cenacoli Fresco cycles Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore Medici Chapels Natural History and Anthropology Museums Archaeological Museums Museo degli Innocenti Museum of Mathematics Galileo Museum Fondazione Scienza e Tecnica Civic Museums
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House Museums Palazzo Medici Riccardi Casa Buonarroti Casa Vasari Stibbert Museum Horne Museum Palazzo Strozzi In the now Alinari National Museum of Photography Fashion Museums and Archives Bardini Villa and Garden ECRF Exhibition Area Libraries Famous foreigners Foreigners in Florence Medici Villas Walks in the city Architecture walks Children In Tuscany
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the on-line calendar of events, updated weekly, is available at www.visitartfirenze.com
photo Francesca Anichini
the uffizi
Vasari Corridor Collezione Contini Bonacossi For information on opening times and bookings see www.uffizi.firenze.it
Laboratorio Novecento Il corpo
curated by Federica Chezzi and Claudia Tognaccini Sala delle Reali Poste 29 October-30 November 2013 open: Monday to Saturday 10-12 Booking required; free admission
see p. 44
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www.polomuseale.firenze.it/uffizi
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
Joseph Beuys, Self-portrait with a hat, c. 1970. The Uffizi
exhibitions Il Gran Principe
Ferdinando de’ Medici (1663-1713) collezionista e mecenate curated by Riccardo Spinelli the Uffizi until 3 November 2013 The exhibition focuses on the diverse interests of the son of Cosimo III and MargueriteLouise d’Orléans and his initiatives in bringing to Florence the best musicians, singers, designers, painters and sculptors of the time. The eight sections show the prince from the years at his favourite villa of Pratolino – transforming its interior, enriching it with works by his favourite painters – through his marriage to Violante Beatrice of Bavaria, until the preparations for his funeral. Sacred and profane creations, ‘natura dipinta’, ornaments, portraits, documents, sketches and preparatory drawings trace the evolution of Ferdinando’s refined tastes in collecting and his relations with Tuscan and ‘foreign’ artists.
Uffizi pages edited by Valentina Conticelli with Monica Alderotti
i mai visti 13
Autoritratti ungheresi degli Uffizi curated by Fehér Ildikó and Giovanna Giusti San Pier Scheraggio 11 October-30 November 2013 The Uffizi Gallery is exhibiting 23 self-portraits by Hungarian artists as one of the most appropriate ways of acknowledging the cultural friendship between Hungary and Italy, now being celebrated in the year 2013. The acquisitions of self-portraits made by the Uffizi in 19811983 were followed by others, under the supervision of Miklós Boskovits. The exhibition is in fact dedicated to this wellknown art historian and professor of Florence University, who lived in Italy from 1968 and recently died. The exhibition, in homage to the great art scholar, has seen collaboration between Italian and Hungarian art historians, like János Végh and Fehér Ildikó, who have carried out comprehensive archival and bibliographical research. open: Tuesday to Friday 10-17
Dietrofront curated by Giovanna Giusti Sala delle Reali Poste 17 December 2013 2 February 2014 The exhibition, promoted by the Friends of the Uffizi, shows unusual works from the deposits of the Gallery and other Polo Museale museums. Paintings, sculptures, majolicas, furnishings and gold ornaments are displayed showing the backs of the works, normally hidden from view. Sketches, double portraits, love dedications, inventory numbers enable us to make numerous discoveries. A history of collectionism is interwoven with sublime religious images, with works by David, Froment, Memling, Dürer, Bruegel, Fabre, Moroni, Russolo, Sciltian and Nano Campeggi. Thus a cat and mouse or flowers or upturned women, ironic and delightful tributes to the fantasy of the artists, together with a precious cabinet and a portable altar enclosed in a trunk, tell the story of the museum from another point of view. open: Tuesday to Sunday 10-17
La Collezione Molinari Pradelli alla Galleria degli Uffizi curated by Angelo Motta the Uffizi 11 February-11 May 2014 The celebrated orchestra director Francesco Molinari Pradelli (1911-1996) was one of the greatest collectors of Italian baroque painting. The 100 paintings on display, selected from among 200 works collected between the 1950s and 1970s, illustrate his predilection for 17th- and 18thcentury painting, documenting the various Italian schools, particularly sketches and models. While the figure paintings of the Emilian and Neapolitan schools prevail, there are also masterpieces by Venetian, Ligurian, Lombard and Roman artists. What conferred international notoriety on the collection were, however, the numerous still life paintings, the sign of a rare discernment, making Pradelli a true connoisseur of Italian baroque art and at the same time a forerunner of modern still life studies and intelligent forms of collectionism.
Over 130 self-portraits by 20th-century Italian and foreign artists leave their storage areas in the deposits of the Uffizi to be displayed in the final section of the Vasari Corridor, replacing the historical portraits that were set up there in 1973. It may be recalled that lack of space, the cause of certain ‘forced’ choices, meant that the 20th century ended with the loudly-coloured portraits of Guttuso and Chagall, which at the time were in themselves ‘courageous’ inclusions. Giving a semblance of order to that chronological and stylistic development guiding the continuous display of the collection, with a balanced representation of both Italian and foreign artists, has involved a far from easy selection. Many important works arrived over the last three decades (over 600 new self-portraits), datable in large part to the years 1981-1983, coinciding with the fourth centenary of the Gallery, and with the acquisition of the Raimondo Rezzonico collection in 2005. Following a reorganisation involving the final stretch of Santa Felicita – where it was necessary to rearrange the late 19th-century portraits in order to set up the new 20th-century display – the new section, inaugurated on 27 September 2013, begins with Afternoon in Fiesole by Baccio Maria Bacci, which appears from afar at once imposing and intimate, and provides the link, in the stretch turning towards Pitti, with the many ‘new’ acquisitions. It is not a contemplative pause that guides them, as they would deserve, but the urgency of bringing together visually the variety of often innovative expressions that the long and complex course of the 20th century stimulated. The present selection, which I made together with the director, Antonio Natali, and with Rendel Simonti, who contributed with his artist’s eye, took into account the quality of the works, going so far as to include some of particular refinement, in terms of technique and material support, like the photographs, considering the possibility of their rotation by means of a mobile hanging system. Some names: Conti, Brunelleschi, the Buenos, Carrà, Campigli, Vedova, Ligabue, Pistoletto, but also Böcklin, Liebermann, Chaplin, Opsomer, Beuys, Siqueiros, Bishop, Rauschenberg, Lassnig and Albright… In the final stages of the new section, nearest the direct link with Palazzo Pitti, is a selection of the most recent acquisitions (Kusama, Paladino, Clemente, Mapplethorpe, La Rocca, Holzer, Woodman, Paolini, among others), including some excellent sculpted self-portraits, like Brolis, Marini, Venturi, Ceroli, Mitoraj and Fabre. At the base of the works a modern system of captions may serve as a guideline for the further future enlargement of the collection on display. This selection was created, in fact, with the limitation of having to choose few works among many, but with the hope that the historical collection of self-portraits may soon be extended from lungarno degli Archibusieri. This would make it possible to extract other worthy Italian and international portraits of the 19th and 20th centuries from the deposits of the Gallery. Giovanna Giusti Director of the Department of Nineteenth-Century and Contemporary Art at the Uffizi
the uffizi
focus 20th-century self-portraits in the Vasari Corridor. An initial selection
Carlo Carrà, Self-portrait, 1951. The Uffizi
off-site exhibitions ‘La città degli Uffizi 10’
Francesco Granacci e Giovanni Larciani all’Oratorio di Santa Caterina all’Antella curated by Lucia Aquino and Simone Giordani Bagno a Ripoli, Oratorio di Santa Caterina 14 September 2013-12 January 2014 Following the exhibition L’Oratorio di Santa Caterina all’Antella e i suoi pittori, the Comune di Bagno a Ripoli, in association with the Uffizi, offers a new exhibition as part of the ‘La città degli Uffizi’ series. The selection of works gathered together in the oratory, some of which never been exhibited before, aims to contribute to an understanding of the person and art of Francesco Granacci, friend of Michelangelo and artist of fundamental importance in the development of the ‘maniera moderna’. The exhibition also spotlights the relationship that must have linked Granacci to the painter Giovanni Larciani, formerly labelled the ‘Master of the Kress Landscapes’. ‘La città degli Uffizi 11’
Arte a Figline. Da Paolo Uccello a Vasari curated by Nicoletta Pons Figline Valdarno, Palazzo Pretorio 19 October 2013-19 January 2014 The exhibition follows on from the previous Arte a Figline. Dal Maestro della Maddalena a Masaccio by focusing attention on works from the Figline area. Among the 25 works displayed are altarpieces that reveal a quality worthy of city churches and the presence of important patrons, while crucifixes and sculptures are evidence of the devotion of confraternities, monasteries and parish churches. Expressions of Ghirlandaiesque culture can be seen in the two Angels by Bartolomeo di Giovanni, which framed the older Maestà by the Master of Figline in the Collegiata, the Virgin and Saints by Sebastiano Mainardi and the panel of Castelnuovo dei Sabbioni. The art of Botticelli also had an influence in Figline, not documented in the exhibition, but evident in the city itinerary that includes the frescoes in San Francesco and those of the Oratory of the Compagnia della Visitazione.
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the uffizi department of prints and drawings (gabinetto disegni e stampe)
he prestigious collection of drawings and prints of the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi (GDSU) began with the Medici family collections and in particular with the works assembled by Leopoldo de’ Medici, who became cardinal in 1667. Leopoldo made use of numerous agents to purchase folios by the greatest Renaissance and Mannerist artists. In 1737, following the extinction of the Medici dynasty, the Lorraine enriched the collection, which was added to in the period following the constitution of the Kingdom of Italy thanks to a great many donations. Today, the collection contains over 170,000 works by Tuscan artists, artists of other Italian schools, and Flemish and Dutch, French, Spanish, and German artists.
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via della Ninna, 5 open: Exhibition Room follows the Uffizi opening hours; Sala di Studio Monday, Wednesday and Friday 8.30-13.30, Tuesday and Thursday 8.30-17 (access is reserved to scholars, upon letter of presentation).
www.polomuseale.firenze.it/musei/disegni
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exhibitions
Pietro Testa, artista filosofo del Seicento L’omaggio di Filippo Baldinucci exhibition oversight Marzia Faietti and Giorgio Marini curated by Marzia Faietti and Elena De Luca until 15 October 2013 The aim of the exhibition is to restore, at least in part, the great esteem this artist from Lucca – pupil of Pietro da Cortona and appreciated particularly by the Medici court – gained above all as a draftsman, understood in his time by Baldinucci. His vast amount of work in drawing and engraving (primarily etching) is illustrated through about 40 works that show a preference for themes that are philosophical, allegorical or moral.
Una novella patria dello spirito Firenze e gli artisti delle Venezie nel primo Novecento exhibition oversight Marzia Faietti and Giorgio Marini 14 December 2013-9 February 2014 Drawing on the lesser-known areas of its rich collection, the GDSU, in collaboration with the Fondazione Coronini Cronberg of Gorizia and the Soprintendenza of Trieste, dedicates an exhibition to the special influence that Florence had on a great number of Venetian, Friulian and Giulian artists in the first part of the 20th century, when for many the city represented the most complete synthesis of Italian culture, and not merely in a figurative and literary sense. Florence’s crucial role thus emerges even in relation to the revival of engraving in Italy at the beginning of the last century, that ‘black and white’ art which at the time was enjoying a new lease of life, thanks partly to many of these artists. Attracted by the aura of the city’s glorious artistic past, they contributed to the incredible vitality of a particularly prolific period for engraving and illustration.
installation Colori di segni dinamici 11-24 November 2013 On the occasion of the study day on colour in museum layout, organised by the Uffizi, the GDSU offers an exhibition/installation by Emilio Farina in the Sala Detti
Euploos Project Computerised cataloguing and digitisation of the GDSU works on paper www.polomuseale.firenze.it/ gdsu/euploos
Guido Balsamo Stella, Attitudini di difesa (Amazzone), 1913, etching. GDSU
Dal giglio al David
Arte civica a Firenze fra Medioevo e Rinascimento curated by Maria Monica Donato and Daniela Parenti until 6 January 2014 The exhibition presents works made to embellish the public buildings of Florence, the headquarters of the Guilds and magistracies, and the city walls. The selection of works illustrates the chosen figurative subjects, underlining the importance of such images in the communication and propaganda of the groups holding government in communal and republican times. The main subjects of this complex figurative medium, with their many allegorical references, are religious: the Madonnas ‘in maestà’, patron saints, and evangelical episodes linked to the administration of justice. Public buildings and venues also housed that genre of paintings that represented people and episodes unpopular in the city as well as propitious images like Donatello’s Dovizia, now lost but once placed in the market. Moreover, the decoration of the city gates and the heraldic images embellishing the walls celebrated the city and its allies.
the accademia
exhibition
n 1873 Michelangelo’s David was transferred to the specially designed tribune from piazza della Signoria. The presence of the David, the Prisoners and Saint Matthew indicate that in the 19th century the Gallery was already identifying itself as a Michelangelo museum. Yet the Gallery’s main collection is built upon the 18th-century collections of the Accademia del Disegno and the Accademia di Belle Arti, enriched with works from the suppressed monasteries. The works collected here, in addition to the plaster casts, were used as teaching materials for the students of the Accademia. The holdings comprise mostly paintings by major artists who worked in and around Florence between the mid-13th and the late-16th century. The collection is especially important for its unique paintings on a gold background, the splendid late-Gothic polyptychs and the collection of Russian icons. Also displayed in the Department of Musical Instruments are about 50 musical instruments (17th to 19th century) from the private collections of the Medici and the Lorraine, shown against the splendid backdrop of various paintings representing scenes of the musical life of the Medicean court, panoplies and still lifes with musical instruments. Among them are some remarkable instruments, both for their sound (audible on headphones at the terminals giving information on the musical culture of Florence under the grand dukes) as well as their exquisite workmanship. Among the most precious pieces are the ’cello and tenor viol by Stradivarius (1690), the only surviving pieces of the Quintetto mediceo that belonged to Grand Prince Ferdinando de’ Medici.
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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
upcoming
Ri-conoscere Michelangelo 18 February-18 May 2014 Leather bags, used in the election of the priors, 15th century. Florence, Archivio di Stato
The Gallery, in collaboration with the Fratelli Alinari I.D.E.A. S.p.a., celebrates the 450th anniversary of the death of Michelangelo Buonarroti.
Edoardo Detti, architetto e urbanista curated by the Faculty of Architecture, University of Florence 4 October-4 November 2013 100 years since the birth of Detti, no other place better than Orsanmichele reflects the value of his commitment to the city, the fundamental contribution he made to preserving the image of Florence from the years of reconstruction after the war, tempering it with the inevitable need for change. “Dado” Detti has rightly been lauded for “the rigor of his cultural standing backed up by an intellectual and political integrity”. His career was an extraordinary case of the beauty of ideas being translated into concrete facts and achievements. Aware of the difficulties of his task (he was councillor responsible for town planning under the mayor La Pira and drafted the Town Plan of the city in 1962), and armed with a pessimism that Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti described as “preventive” – by carefully analysing and establishing the organization of spaces, places and functions on the basis of his Plan, he remains the main person responsible for the appearance Florence has today in its better preserved areas. From the top of Orsanmichele, where the exhibition is being staged, we can admire the view of the surrounding hills which, thanks to Detti’s work, were saved from the threat of devastating building development; we can also appreciate the extent of the urban sprawl on the plain of the Arno towards Prato and Pistoia, which Detti would have wanted to regulate with urbanistic measures mutually agreed upon by the cities involved; and it is not hard to grasp how serious the destruction of the old centre of Florence was at the end of the 19th century, for long studied by Detti, around the tall building of Orsanmichele, which today remains one of the few surviving monuments in a sea of ugly and formless constructions. Antonio Godoli Director of Orsanmichele
orsanmichele
exhibition
uilt in the 13th century as a granary and market, in the next century Orsanmichele became a religious place, thanks to the miraculous image of the Virgin painted on a column, and in the middle of the 14th century was consecrated for Christian worship. From then until the 17th century the building, which served both civil and religious functions, was modified and enriched by the city guilds with the 14 canopied niches of the exterior. Religious services take place regularly, and concerts of classical music are held here, overlooked by the splendid marble tabernacle by Orcagna and the 14th-century Madonna delle Grazie by Bernardo Daddi. On the first floor of Orsanmichele is the Sculpture Hall, which, in order to protect them, houses the original statues from the tabernacles, replaced by copies.
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via dell’Arte della Lana open: Church every day 10-17, Museum Monday 10-17
www.polomuseale.firenze.it/ musei/orsanmichele
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palazzo pitti
exhibitions leonora di Toledo, wife of Cosimo I, bought and greatly extended Palazzo Pitti to create a light and airy residence for the ducal family and surrounded it with superb gardens. The palace was linked by the Vasari Corridor to the Uffizi and Palazzo Vecchio, which remained the official seat of government. In the course of its history the building has been home not only to the grand dukes, but also to Italy’s royal family. Today it houses several impressive collections of paintings, sculptures and artefacts, in perfectly preserved surroundings. This prestigious structure now houses seven museums.
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piazza dei Pitti
www.polomuseale.firenze.it/musei/palazzopitti
Silver Museum The museum takes its name from the silver collections of the bishops of Salzburg, brought to Florence in 1815 by Ferdinando III of Lorraine. Nevertheless the most important collection in the museum is the famous Medici Treasury, collected by the Medici from the 15th century onwards and once housed in the Tribune of the Uffizi. The museum also includes elegant Chinese and Japanese porcelain.
Porcelain Museum Located in the 18th-century Palazzina del Cavaliere, the museum houses the finest European porcelain collected by Pietro Leopoldo and Ferdinando III of Lorraine, alongside porcelain removed from the historic residences in Parma, Piacenza and Sala Baganza.
Boboli Gardens Behind the Pitti Palace lie the magnificent Boboli Gardens, a veritable open-air museum, filled with antique and Renaissance statues, and enhanced with grottoes and grand fountains. The grounds were first laid out at the time of the Medici, creating the formal garden that would become a model for European courts. Palazzo Pitti and Villa Bardini are connected via the Boboli Gardens. open: every day from November to February 8.15-16.30, in March and October after official summer time sets in 8.15-17.30, in April, May, September and October 8.15-18.30, from June to August 8.15-18.50 closed: 1st and last Monday of the month, 1 January, 1 May, 25 December
The Palatine Gallery and Royal Apartments 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 the 17th century. 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.
Gallery of Modern Art The Gallery shows paintings and sculptures mainly by Italian artists, dating from the late 18th century to the First World War. The works range from the neo-classical period to Romanticism and include a fine collection of the Macchiaioli artists. open: Tuesday to Sunday 8.15-18.50 closed: 1 January, 1 May, 25 December
Diafane passioni Avori barocchi dalle corti europee
curated by Eike D. Schmidt and Maria Sframeli Silver Museum until 3 November 2013 Ivory sculpture in the baroque period was in demand all over Europe, a sophisticated art form combining the craftsman’s skill with the preciousness of the raw material; in Florence Ferdinando de’ Medici started an extraordinary collection. Over 150 ivories from the Silver Museum, foreign museums and private collections enable us to review the history of this art from the 15th century up to the achievements of artists like Leonhard Kern, François Duquesnoy and Georg Petel. Two sections are dedicated to the production of the Spanish and Portuguese colonies and turned ivories, little marvels of technical virtuosity in which the German turners combined a flair for the whimsical with the rigour of mathematical calculation, interweaving symbolism, numerology, geometry and philosophy.
Impressionisti a Palazzo Pitti
Dodici capolavori dal Museo d’Orsay curated by Simonella Condemi Gallery of Modern Art 24 September 2013 5 January 2014 12 masterpieces from the Parisian museum, offering a substantial survey of 19th-century French painting, particularly Impressionism. Works by Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Henri Fantin-Latour and Paul Guigou.
Carriage Museum The museum houses fine examples of carriages used by the Lorraine and Savoy courts as well as antique harnesses for horses. The oldest carriage is an 18th-century rocaille coupé. open: upon request
Maestro delle Furie, Marco Curzio si getta nella voragine, ivory. Palazzo Pitti, Silver Museum
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palazzo pitti
Costume Gallery The Gallery was founded in 1983 in the Palazzina della Meridiana. Dedicated to the history of fashion from the 18th century to the present day, it houses clothes, accessories and jewels as well as stage costumes. There is also an important collection of papers, including archive documents, sketches and drawings. open: every day from November to February 8.15-16.30, in March and October after official summer time sets in 8.15-17.30, in April, May, September and October 8.15-18.30, from June to August 8.15-18.50 closed: 1st and last Monday of the month, 1 January, 1 May, 25 December
exhibition
Il cappello fra Arte e Stravaganza curated by Caterina Chiarelli in collaboration with Consorzio del cappello di Firenze 12 November 2013-13 April 2014 The exhibition aims to make known a still unfamiliar treasure of the Gallery, highlighting the importance of the hat both as an artistic creation and as an expression of fashion. Over the years many donations and acquisitions have been made to enrich the collections of the Gallery, involving some of the most eminent names in the fashion world, like Philip Treacy, Paulette, Givenchy, Jeanne Lanvin, Christian Dior, Balmain, Balenciaga and Pierre Cardin. The exhibition focuses on an art of longestablished tradition, that of the milliner, as well as the work of present-day hatmaking firms which represent, like the collections of the Gallery, a historical patrimony to be protected and developed, an art worthy of being preserved. Linking a collection that is alive and interesting, by virtue of its artistic force, with a present where quality invariably corresponds with creativity, provides an opportunity to show the public a flair and inventiveness that, even today, is capable of continual transformation, using modern methods and traditional workmanship. Removed from its normal function, the hat is seen as a work of art, where creativity becomes the real leitmotif of the exhibition, where colour is intermingled with shapes dictated by taste, with detail and with the most unexpected extravagances.
Black velvet cap, trimmed with a veil and black and white feathers, c. 1985, gift of Aldo Buti. Palazzo Pitti, Costume Gallery
new display
Donne protagoniste del Novecento from 12 November 2013
The Costume Gallery is 30 years old Palazzo Pitti, Sala Bianca December 2013 Study day organised to mark the 30th anniversary of the Costume Gallery focusing on the work carried out in the field of the conservation and promotion of the Gallery’s collections and on the various museographical criteria adopted over the passage of time.
The exhibition on important women of the 20th century, to mark the 30th anniversary of the Gallery’s foundation, involves a total rearrangement of the museum. The distinguishing traits of the personalities of the women featured, each a leading figure in a specific field, emerge from their clothing or from their creations with fabric and decoration: from the tunics of Eleonora Duse through various pieces designed for Patty Pravo by stylists like Versace, Gucci and Cavalli, up to the one-day wonders that are wedding dresses.
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san marco museum
he museum building, 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. 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 that were demolished in the 19th century.
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piazza di San Marco, 3 open: Monday to Friday 8.15-13.50, Saturday, Sunday and holidays 8.15-16.50 closed: 1st, 3rd and 5th Sunday, 2nd and 4th Monday of the month, 1 January, 1 May, 25 December
www.polomuseale.firenze.it/ musei/sanmarco
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restoration in progress works from the Cloister of Sant’Antonino • Columns, capitols and stone benches • Bernardino Poccetti, Sant’Antonino rescues two young people from drowning other works • Beato Angelico, Pala di San Marco • Repair of the wooden trusses in the corridors of the living quarters
news from the museum The Sala Capitolare is now open to the public after the restoration of the fresco by Beato Angelico Crucifixion and Saints
exhibition
Mattia Corvino e Firenze
Arte e Umanesimo alla corte del re di Ungheria curated by Magnolia Scudieri, Lia Brunori, Péter Farbaky and Dániel Pócs San Marco Library 10 October 2013-6 January 2014 This exhibition reconstructs the relations existing between Hungary and Italy from the 14th century. It also looks at the spread of Humanism in Hungary, focusing on the privileged relations that King Matthias Corvinus enjoyed with Florence. The project was developed jointly by Hungarian and Florentine scholars and is based in the Museum of San Marco because of the role the Library of the Dominican convent had in the development of humanistic culture. Built in 1444 on the wishes of Cosimo de’ Medici, and enriched with the extraordinary collection of the humanist Niccolò Niccoli, San Marco was in fact the first ‘public’ library of the Renaissance, where, during the age of Lorenzo, might be found such men as Marsilio Ficino or Pico della Mirandola. Through paintings, sculptures, ceramics and miniatures from both European and American museums, the exhibition illustrates the tastes of the Hungarian king in relation to Florentine culture. It attempts to identify possible influences exerted by Lorenzo the Magnificent and the circle of intellectuals and artists around him and to demonstrate the extent to which Hungarian Humanism was rooted in Italy. Particular attention is devoted to the libraries of Matthias (now dispersed) and Lorenzo de’ Medici, with the exhibition of illuminated manuscripts commissioned by the Hungarian king, some of which, still unfinished in Florence at the time of his death, were purchased by the Medici. Among the most important loans are the furnishings of Matthias’s throne from the National Museum of Budapest, made to designs by Antonio del Pollaiolo; the Portrait of Alexander the Great from the National Gallery of Washington, attributed to Andrea del Verrocchio; the Bible of Matthias from the Laurentian Library illuminated by Monte and Gherardo di Giovanni; the Portraits of Matthias Corvinus and Beatrice of Aragon from the Fine Arts Museum of Budapest, attributed to Giovanni Dalmata; and the Epithalamium of Marliano from the Biblioteca Guarnacci of Volterra, with the portrait of Matthias executed by a miniaturist belonging to Leonardo’s circle. Gregorio di Lorenzo (?), La battaglia di Teseo, terracotta relief, 15th century. Vác, Tragor Ignác Múzeum
• Piero Guidi e Francesco di Neri called Sellaio (attributed), Two lions • Stone inscription marking the extent of the walls of Florence, 1321 • Relief with the emblem of the people of Florence, 14th century • Relief with the emblem of the Parte Guelfa, 14th century • Zanobi di Bartolo, Prophet, 14th century • Simone Talenti, Prophet, 14th century in: Florence, the Accademia for the exhibition: Dal giglio al David until 6 January 2014 • Fra Bartolomeo, Ritratto di Fra Girolamo Savonarola in sembianze di san Pietro Martire in: Brasilia, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil for the exhibition: Capolavori del Rinascimento until 5 January 2014 • Paolo Uccello, Madonna con il Bambino in: Prato, Museo Civico, Palazzo Pretorio for the exhibition: Officina pratese. Da Donatello a Filippo Lippi until 13 January 2014 • Paolo Uccello, Cristo in pietà tra la Madonna e san Giovanni Evangelista (Predella di Avane), 1452 in: Figline Valdarno, Palazzo Pretorio for the exhibition: Arte a Figline. Da Paolo Uccello a Vasari from 19 October 2013 to 19 January 2014 • Beato Angelico, Three panels from the Armadio degli Argenti • Beato Angelico, Psalter • Zanobi Strozzi and Filippo di Matteo Torelli, Antiphonary F, 1447 • 16th-century Florentine manufacture, Fragment of the architrave of the gate of the Temple, once below the entrance to the Florentine Ghetto in: Bonn, Kunst – und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland for the exhibition: Florenz! from 22 November 2013 to 9 March 2014 • Filippo Dolciati (attributed), Il supplizio di Girolamo Savonarola in: Florence, National Library for the exhibition: La via al Principe from 10 December 2013 to 28 February 2014 • Fra Bartolomeo, Ritratto di Fra Girolamo Savonarola in: Florence, Palazzo Strozzi for the exhibition: Pontormo e Rosso. Divergenti vie della ‘maniera’ from 8 March to 20 July 2014
event
A close-up look at the restored frescoes of the Cappella Maggiore until 31 October 2013 Guided close-up tours throughout October of the Cappella Maggiore frescoed by Agnolo Gaddi with episodes from the Legend of the True Cross, one of the major artistic works of the medieval period. Before the restoration site is closed, visitors are taken up on to the seven levels of the scaffolding (90 steps, no lift) by a guide who describes the scenes in the frescoes and the pictorial techniques employed. information and booking: 055 2466105 int. 3 booking@santacroceopera.it
Agnolo Gaddi, detail of the Legend of the True Cross. Church of Santa Croce, Cappella Maggiore
santa croce monumental complex
works on loan from the San Marco Museum
he Franciscan basilica of Santa Croce is a sort of open workshop that in 700 years has seen the most extraordinary religious and civil events and contains an exceptional wealth in works of art. It contains the tombs of many great figures in Italian history, and is thus defined the ‘tempio delle itale glorie’. A visit to the monumental complex includes: the Basilica, the cloisters and the early Renaissance Pazzi Chapel, the hall of 19th-century funerary monuments, the exhibition devoted to the wood engraver Pietro Parigi, the great 20th-century Italian illustrator, the Museo dell’Opera, which includes the Sala del Cenacolo (Refectory), with important works including Cimabue’s Crucifix and Taddeo Gaddi’s frescoes of the Last Supper and the Albero della Vita.
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piazza di Santa Croce open: Monday to Saturday 9.30-17.30; Sunday, 6 January, 15 August, 1 November, 8 December 14-17.30 closed: 1 January, Easter, 13 June, 4 October, 25 and 26 December
www.santacroceopera.it
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, wide-ranging activity. Founded in 1588 for the manufacture of furnishings using semiprecious stones, in the late 19th century the Opificio changed character, shifting toward restoration. Following the catastrophic flood of November 1966 and the establishment of the Ministry for Cultural and Environmental Assets in 1975, the old Medici Opificio and the Restoration Laboratory of the Fine Arts Service were merged to create a single entity. In 2007, the Opificio became an Istituto Centrale and specialised in restoration, applied research and education, 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 mirrors the history of the centuries of work carried out here, work that included prestigious creations today preserved in palaces and museums throughout Europe. 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 semiprecious stones brought together in order to be used for the commesso fiorentino inlay technique.
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Opificio via degli Alfani, 78; Fortezza da Basso, viale Filippo Strozzi, 1; Palazzo Vecchio, Sala delle Bandiere
Museum via degli Alfani, 78 open: Monday to Saturday 8.15-14 closed: holidays www.opificiodellepietredure.it
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focus The restoration of a 15th-century tapestry The monumental tapestry representing the Final Assault on Jerusalem, datable to around 1480, comes from the workshops of Tournai, at that time a flourishing Flemish centre for the production of tapestries, today a Frenchspeaking city in the Wallonia region of Belgium. This work entered the Bargello Museum with the Carrand collection in 1888. Woven with a warp in wool and a weft in wool and silk, and measuring 432x402 cm, it is a rare example in Italy of antique tapestry production. The representation of the taking of Jerusalem by Vespasian and Titus in 70 AD was inspired by the narration of the episode in De bello iudaico by the historian Giuseppe Flavio. The scene is represented with an ingenuous narrative vivacity, full of expressionistic elements, especially in the faces and unnatural poses of the fighters, some on horseback, some victorious, others fallen or fatally wounded. The range of colours is particularly vivid: reds and blues (with shades of blue) stand out against the beige of the buildings, while dark brown defines and exalts the contrast of tones. When the équipe of the Opificio Laboratory inspected it in the deposits of the Bargello in 2006, it was in a poor state of preservation. The stiff lining onto which it had been sewn, while concealing extensive lacunae, had caused the fabric to be unnaturally under tension, while the colours, faded and made indistinct by layers of accumulated grime, rendered the scene scarcely legible. Chosen as the subject of a diploma thesis for two students of the Scuola di Alta Formazione dell’Opificio, the work was moved to the Tapestry Restoration Laboratory, where restoration began in 2008. In the early stages the tapestry was the object of study, to reconstruct its history and links with the culture of the age, and of preliminary analyses, to understand the nature of the dirt that had accumulated on the fibres, the characteristics of the threads, and to assess its resistance to washing – an operation which removes grease and general dirt, and contributes to hydrating the fibres and the clarity of the scene represented. At the same time the students also began working directly on the tapestry, consolidating its structure. The demanding and innovative restoration of the tapestry, documented by an exhibition at the Bargello, went on for five years – from January 2008 to March 2013 – and took around 10,000 hours of work.
Percorsi di meraviglia
Opere restaurate del Bargello curated by Beatrice Paolozzi Strozzi and Ilaria Ciseri until 3 November 2013 An exhibition of some recently completed important restoration. This includes the imposing Franco-Flemish tapestry of the Carrand collection, a work spectacular for its colour and narrative vivacity. Made around 1480 by the Tournai workshops, and based on a cartoon attributed to the Master of Coetivy, it represents the final assault on Jerusalem by Vespasian and Titus in 70 AD. The tapestry is exhibited together with ivory mirror cases, of 14th-century French workmanship, which show remarkable similarities to the tapestry scenes. On show is also a selection of both gold and enamel objects, and a large high-relief in polychrome terracotta by Dello Delli, representing the Madonna Enthroned with Child and Angels (c. 1420). A video and didactic material illustrate the history of the works, the most interesting phases of the restoration, and the working techniques. open: every day 8.15-17 closed: 2nd and 4th Monday of the month
the bargello
exhibition
he Bargello National Museum is found in the former Palazzo del Capitano del Popolo, built in 1255 and in 1287 embellished with a verone, the loggia that opens onto the courtyard where the Podestà assembled the representatives of the guilds. In 1502, the palace became the seat of the Consiglio di Giustizia, headed by the Bargello or chief of police, and was then used as a prison. In 1865 the palazzo 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, Cellini and Giambologna. Prestigious collections of small bronzes, majolica-ware, wax upcoming pieces, enamel work, medals, ivories, seals, and fabrics, from Baccio both the Medici collections and Bandinelli private donations, have enriched scultore the museum’s holdings. 9 April via del Proconsolo, 4 13 July 2014 open: every day 8.15-13.50
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closed: 2nd and 4th Monday of the month, 1 January, 1 May, 25 December
www.polomuseale.firenze.it/bargello
Tournai manufacture, Final Assault on Jerusalem, 15th century. The tapestry during work at the Opificio (opposite) and after restoration
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cenacoli and fresco cycles
Sant’Apollonia The museum which occupies part of the historic Benedictine convent of Sant’Apollonia, houses Andrea del Castagno’s Last Supper (c. 1447), flanked by other scenes of the Passion and the Resurrection, and various works from the monastery.
Other cenacoli to visit, found inside church museums and monasteries Cenacolo di Santa Croce Santa Croce Monumental Complex (see p. 9)
via XXVII Aprile, 1 open: every day 8.15-13.50 closed: 1st, 3rd and 5th Sunday of the month, 2nd and 4th Monday of the month, 1 January, 1 May, 25 December
Cenacolo di Santa Maria Novella
Cenacolo di Ognissanti
Cenacolo di San Marco
The refectory of the Convento degli Umiliati, founded in 1251, houses the Last Supper painted by Domenico Ghirlandaio in 1480. As the fresco has been detached, it is also possible to view the sinopia. Convento di Ognissanti borgo Ognissanti, 42 open: Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday 9-12 closed: 1 January, 1 May, August and 25 December
Santa Maria Novella Museum (see p. 19)
San Marco Museum (see p. 8)
Cenacolo di Santo Spirito Salvatore Romano Foundation (see p. 19)
Cenacolo del Carmine Brancacci Chapel (see p. 19)
Fuligno
Cenacolo della Calza
Located in the former convent of the Franciscan nuns of Sant’Onofrio, also known as the Fuligno Sisters from the name of their town of origin, is the Last Supper now recognised as the work of Pietro Perugino and workshop (1490), as well as various frescoes that have been detached from other walls of the convent.
Convento della Calza, piazza della Calza, 6 open: on request 055 222287
Museo del Cenacolo di Fuligno via Faenza, 42 open: Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday 9-13 closed: 1 January, 1 May, 25 December
San Salvi
The museum takes its name from Andrea del Sarto’s Last Supper (1526-1527), painted in the refectory of the Vallombrosan monastery of San Salvi; in the other rooms, among them the kitchen and the Sala del Lavabo, the works shown are principally of the Florentine school. Museo del Cenacolo di Andrea del Sarto via di San Salvi, 16 open: Tuesday to Sunday 8.15-13.50 closed: 1 January, 1 May, 25 December
Oratorio dei Buonomini di San Martino The Confraternita dei Buonomini was founded by Saint Antoninus to assist the ‘poveri vergognosi’ and was established in 1478 in rooms behind the church of San Martino, which were eventually transformed into an oratory. The space is decorated with a series of lunettes, painted around 1480 by Domenico Ghirlandaio’s workshop, illustrating the story of San Martino and the confraternity’s charitable work. The adjacent rooms house a rich archive documenting over five centuries of work of the confraternity. Oratorio dei Buonomini di San Martino piazza di San Martino open: every day 10-12 and 15-17 closed: Friday and holidays
Crucifixion by Perugino 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. The Sala Capitolare houses Perugino’s evocative fresco of the Crucifixion and Saints (1493-1496), with the figure of Mary Magdalene kneeling at the foot of the Cross. This is the most important artistic evidence of the Cistercian period of the monastery. Church and monastery of Santa Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi access via the Liceo Michelangiolo, via della Colonna, 9 open: Tuesday and Thursday 14.30-17.30 closed: August, public holidays and school holidays
Chiostro dello Scalzo The cloister originally formed the entrance to the Chapel of the Brotherhood of Saint John the Baptist, founded in 1376 and known as the Scalzo. Andrea del Sarto was responsible for the fresco cycle, which he painted in several stages (1509-1526). The fine monochrome scenes represent episodes from the Life of Saint John the Baptist and the Virtues. Two of the episodes were actually painted by Franciabigio (1518-1519). via Cavour, 69 open: Monday, Thursday, 1st, 3rd and 5th Saturday of the month, 2nd and 4th Sunday of the month 8.15-13.50 closed: 1 January, 1 May, the month of August and 25 December Pietro Perugino and workshop, Last Supper, 1490. Museo del Cenacolo di Fuligno
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Grande Museo del Duomo This is the name chosen by the Board of Works of Santa Maria del Fiore to represent the whole group of monuments around piazza del Duomo, the centre of the museum system. Various projects will improve their use by the public: the introduction of new itineraries, the interior rearrangement of the Campanile and Santa Reparata, and, before 2015, the redesign of the piazza, with seats, green areas and new signage. In autumn the cleaning of the marble facing of the Baptistery and the Palazzi dei Canonici will complete the restoration of the 40,000 square metres that make up the total surface area of the monuments of the Grande Museo del Duomo. Work on the extension and rearrangement of the new Museo dell’Opera will continue, while the system of single admission to all monuments of the complex, valid for 24 hours, began in the summer.
via della Canonica, 1 office hours: Monday to Friday 8-19, Saturday 8-14
Plan for the redesign of the piazza around the Duomo. Courtesy of Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore
Crypt of Santa Reparata
Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore
(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.
Designed by the architect Arnolfo di Cambio, Santa Maria del Fiore was built on the earlier church of Santa Reparata and dedicated in 1412 to Santa Maria del Fiore, clearly alluding to the lily, a symbol of the city. The façade was completed only at the end of the 19th century. open: Monday to Wednesday and Friday 10-17; Thursday 10-16.30, in May and October 10-16, from July to September 10-17; Saturday 10-16.45; Sunday and holidays 13.30-16.45
open: Monday to Wednesday and Friday 10-17; Thursday 10-16.30, in May and October 10-16, from July to September 10-17; Saturday 10-16.45, 1 May 8.30-17 closed: major holidays
The Cupola
Giotto’s Campanile
The construction of the cupola, the largest dome ever built, began in1420; five years later construction was under Filippo Brunelleschi alone and was completed up to the base of the lantern on 1 August 1436. open: Monday to Friday 8.30-19, Saturday 8.30-17.40 closed: holidays
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 Santa Maria del Fiore today administers a group of monuments and buildings of exceptional importance, structures that developed around the Cathedral. The complex of buildings, apart from the Duomo and the Baptistery, consists of a variety of ‘places’ characterised by a striking individuality and a historical and functional specificity.
project
Giotto’s bell tower, begun in 1334, 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. open: every day 8.30-19.30, 6 January 8.30-14 closed: 1 January, Easter, 25 December
Nello splendore mediceo
Papa Leone X e Firenze curated by Nicoletta Baldini and Monica Bietti until 6 October 2013 The exhibition celebrates Leo X, the second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent and the first Medici pope, following his life from his birth in Florence in 1475 until his election to the papal throne (9 March 1513) and his brief return to Florence in 1515. open: every day 8.15-16.50
Baptistery of San Giovanni
With an octagonal plan, entirely faced with polychrome marbles, the Baptistery we see today was built over a smaller and earlier Baptistery dating from the 4th or 5th century. open: Monday to Friday 11.15-19; 1st Saturday of the month, Sunday and holidays 8.30-14, Easter Monday, 25 April and 1 May 8.30-19
Museum of the Opera del Duomo
Established in 1891 and rearranged in 1999, the museum is being restructured and enlarged, work that should be finished by 2016. The museum 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 to Saturday 9-19.30, Sunday 9-13.45 closed: 1 and 6 January, 25 December
medici chapels
exhibition
www.operaduomo.firenze.it
state museum since 1869, the history of the Medici Chapels is tied to the history of the basilica of San Lorenzo to which they belong. The museum includes the New Sacristy, designed by Michelangelo, the Chapel of the Princes, a mausoleum in hard stone, the crypt, containing the tombs of the Medici grand dukes and their relatives, and the Lorraine crypt, with the tombs of the Lorraine princes and the funerary monument to Cosimo il Vecchio. The museum also displays items from the Treasury of the basilica of San Lorenzo.
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piazza di Madonna degli Aldobrandini, 6 open: every day 8.15-13.50 closed: 2nd and 4th Sunday, 1st, 3rd and 5th Monday of the month, 1 January, 1 May, 25 December
www.polomuseale.firenze.it/ musei/cappellemedicee
natural history and anthropology museums
he Imperial and Royal Museum of Physics and Natural History, was founded in 1775 by Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo of Hapsburg Lorraine to collect together natural artefacts and scientific instruments, previously kept in the Uffizi Gallery. It is commonly called ‘La Specola’, recalling the Astronomical Observatory which was completed in 1789. The institute now consists of six sections, or museums, located in palazzi throughout the centre of Florence, where items of quite exceptional naturalistic and scientific value are preserved. These include 16th-century herbals, rare 18th-century waxworks, fossilised 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.
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Administrative offices: via Giorgio La Pira, 4
www.msn.unifi.it
Anthropology and Ethnology
Botany
The oldest items come from the Medici collections and the 18th-century collection of James Cook, while others were collected by researchers and scientists in the 19th and 20th century. The American Indians, Lapland, Siberia and Indonesia are all represented in separate sections. The collection of musical instruments is significant.
This is the most important Italian scientific institution for the collection and preservation of plants. The museum houses some exceptional herbals, and 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 del Proconsolo, 12 open: from October to May Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 9-13, Saturday and Sunday 10-17; from June to September Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 10-13, Saturday and Sunday 10-18 closed: 1 January, Easter, 1 May, 15 August, 25 December
via Giorgio La Pira, 4 open: admission with reservation and guided tour only (055 2756444 Monday-Friday 9-17)
‘La Specola’
Mineralogy and Lithology
Collections of minerals, rocks and gems. Not to be missed is the large topaz crystal and an aquamarine weighing almost 1 kilo. Videos and innovative educational multimedia graphics describe and illustrate the museum’s collections.
Geology and Palaeontology
Fossils of vertebrates found in Tuscany over two centuries, illustrating the palaeontological history of the region, its palaeogeography and evolution of marine and terrestrial fauna. On display is the skeleton of the oldest primate found in Tuscany.
via Romana, 17 open: Tuesday to Sunday from October to May 9.30-16.30; from June to September 10.30-17.30; Torrino and Skeleton Hall admission with guided tour upon reservation (055 2756444 Monday-Friday 9-17) closed: Easter, 1 May, 15 August Rooms XXV, XXVII and XXXI-XXXIV, containing wax collections, are temporarily closed for works
via Giorgio La Pira, 4 open: from October to May Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 9-13, Saturday and Sunday 10-17; from June to September Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 10-13, Saturday and Sunday 10-18 closed: 1 January, Easter, 1 May, 15 August, 25 December
Villa Il Gioiello via Pian dei Giullari, 17 Biomedica viale Giovan Battista Morgagni, 85
Botanical Gardens
The Botanical Gardens originated in 1545 as a garden of medicinal plants. Today it covers an area of 3 hectares, with thematic flower-beds, hot-houses and 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 Pier Antonio Micheli, 3 open: from April to 15 October Thursday to Tuesday 10-19, from 16 October to March Saturday to Monday 10-17 closed: 1 January, Easter, 1 May, 15 August, 25 December
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Workshops for children see p. 45
To be visited are the Skeleton Hall, with skulls and complete skeletons of ancient and extinct animals, Galileo’s Tribune (1841), rooms devoted to zoology, 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 of great scientific and artistic interest, and the Torrino. The visit ends with the exhibition of crystals from the Adalberto Giazotto’s collection.
open: by appointment with guided tour only (055 2756444 Monday-Friday 9-17)
exhibitions
Parco Archeologico di Carmignano The centre for archaeology brings together in a single system the Archaeological Museum at Artimino and the various Etruscan sites of the area. The main sites in the Archaeological Park are the Artimino necropolis at Prato Rosello, the fortified settlement of Pietramarina, the Tumulus of Montefortini and the Tomba dei Boschetti at Comeana. The Archaeological Museum at Artimino exhibits a collection of finds discovered in the area of Carmignano and arranged according to topographical and chronological criteria in two sections dedicated to the ‘world of the living’ and the ‘world of the dead’. Archaeological Museum at Artimino piazza San Carlo, Artimino (Prato) open: from February to October Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 9.30-13.30, Saturday and Sunday 9.30-13.30 and 15-18, Wednesday upon reservation; from November to January Saturday, Sunday and holidays 9.30-13.30 and 14-16, special openings upon request closed: 1 January, Easter, 1 May, 15 August, 1 November, 25-26 December, 31 December (when it falls on a Sunday)
Workshops for children see p. 44
www.parcoarcheologicocarmignano.it
Archaeological area and Civic Archaeological Museum of Fiesole The museum exhibits early 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 park. Reorganised in 1981, this also houses the Costantini Collection. via Portigiani, 1, Fiesole open: every day, March and October 10-18, from April to September 10-19, from November to February 10-14 closed: Tuesday from November to February
www.museidifiesole.it
exhibition
Il paesaggio curated by Silvia La Rossa Civic Archaeological Museum of Fiesole, Sala Costantini 5-30 October 2013 On exhibit five large works by Sergio Scatizzi, accompanied by the works of three contemporary artists – Minarini, Pasquini and Pettinato – who pay tribute to the artist, drawing inspiration from Tuscan scenery and entering the landscape of Fiesole.
Inspired Fossils
Photographs by Art Murphy Geology and Palaeontology 21 September-13 October 2013
Enigma Sezione Zoologia ‘La Specola’, Tribuna di Galileo 6-20 October 2013
1914-2014
The hundred years of the Museo Civico Archeologico in Fiesole The museum, the centre of Fiesole’s archaeological complex, was founded in 1914 and celebrates its centenary in the year 2014. For the occasion, and as a result of collaboration between the City of Fiesole and the Soprintendenza Archeologica of Tuscany, the museum will host various activities, including an interesting exhibition on the Longobards.
archaeological museums
Museo Archeologico Nazionale
In 1881 the museum was transferred to the 17th-century Palazzo della Crocetta, built for Cosimo II’s sister, Maria Maddalena de’ Medici. Over time it has acquired masterpieces from the Medici and Lorraine collections and fine examples of art from the Greek, Etruscan and Roman periods, flanked by the important Egyptian Museum collection. Among the large bronzes not to be missed are the Chimera, found near Arezzo in 1553, and the Etruscan Aule Meteli, known as L’Arringatore. The collection of rare figured ceramics is equally prestigious and includes the large black figure François Vase (c. 570 BC). In the area of stone work is a collection of marble sculptures and an important group of rare Etruscan funerary artefacts, with urns from the areas around Chiusi and Volterra and stone and marble sarcofagi, including the famous Amazon sarcophagus (4th century BC). The Egyptian Museum of Florence, second only in Italy to the Turin museum, is also housed here. It is made up of Medici and Lorraine collections and from 1880 was further enriched by Ernesto Schiaparelli, private donors and scientific institutions. Adjacent to the museum is a delightful garden which can be visited on Saturday mornings.
Incontri al Museo until 19 June 2014 A series of lectures at 17 and free admission to the Archaeological Museum
piazza della Santissima Annunziata, 9/b open: Monday 14-19, Tuesday and Thursday 8.30-19, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday 8.30-14 closed: 1 January, 1 May, 15 August, 25 December
exhibition
www.archeotoscana.beniculturali.it
Cortona
L’alba degli Etruschi 8 October 2013-June 2014 The exhibition illustrates the methods and techniques of restoration activity by the Soprintendenza Archeologica, in association with the city administration, in Cortona in 2008-2012. Set up in Cortona in 2013, the exhibition focuses on the finds discovered in the Second Tomb Circle, distinguished by 20 tombs (first half of the 7th to the early 6th century BC). The exhibition also provides an opportunity to review the last 20 years of exploration in the Cortona area, with the discoveries of the Tabula Cortonensis, one of the most important Etruscan inscriptions ever found, and the Roman villa of Ossaia.
Villa Corsini Villa Corsini, on the western outskirts of Florence in the Castello district, was donated to the Italian State in 1968. The villa was used for storage by the Soprintendenza Archeologica della Toscana and has now been completely restored to display an important group of antique sculptures, including the recently restored Apollo saettante. The Antiquarium shows the results of research on objects found locally, dating from the Iron Age to the Roman period. via della Petraia, 38 open: Saturday and Sunday 9.30-13 closed: 1 January, 25 and 26 December
www.polomuseale.firenze.it/musei/villacorsini
The ‘Paolo Graziosi’ Florentine Museum and Institute of Prehistory Created in 1946, the museum brings together, classifies and conserves the prehistoric collections once scattered throughout the city of Florence. The library consists of about 3,000 volumes. via Sant’Egidio, 21 open: Monday 14-17, Tuesday and Thursday 9.30-16.30, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday 9.30-12.30 closed: 1 January, Easter and Easter Monday, 1 May, week of the 15 August, 24-26 and 31 December
www.museofiorentinopreistoria.it
Workshops for children see pp. 42 and 44
Phiale mesomphalos, late 4th century BC, silver laminate. National Archaeological Museum
museo degli innocenti
he history of the Istituto degli Innocenti in Florence began in 1419 with the foundation of the Spedale, or foundling hospital, by the Silkweavers Guild, thanks to 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 up’. 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 Museo degli Innocenti (Mudi) – housing works such as the Adoration of the Magi by Domenico Ghirlandaio, a Virgin and Child by Luca della Robbia, the Virgin and Saints by Piero di Cosimo, and a splendid Virgin and Child by Sandro Botticelli – is located in the gallery, originally designed as the children’s living quarters, above the portico which enhances the façade.
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A new Mudi The extension and reorganisation work of the museum is due to be completed by Spring 2015. For the entire duration of the work a limited area of the structure can be visited: Brunelleschi’s arcade, the Cortile degli Uomini and the Cortile delle Donne, with Simone Talenti’s Saint John the Evangelist, and the Sala Grazzini where a selection of archive documents illustrates the activity of the Istituto degli Innocenti.
Workshops for children see p. 44
piazza della Santissima Annunziata, 12 open: every day 10-19 closed: 1 January, 25 December
Simone Talenti, Saint John the Evangelist. Mudi
museum of mathematics
www.istitutodeglinnocenti.it www.museomudifirenze.it
he Giardino di Archimede is a museum, the first of its kind, dedicated entirely to mathematics and its applications. It is organised into a number of interrelated sections, each of which functions as an independent exhibition: • Beyond the Compass, dedicated to the geometry of curves • Pythagoras and his Theorem • Mathematics in Italy 1800-1950 • A Bridge on the Mediterranean. Leonardo Pisano, Arab Science and the Rebirth of Mathematics in the West • A Little History of Infinitesimal Calculus • Mathematics in the Past through Postage Stamps • Helping Nature. From Galileo’s Le Meccaniche to Daily Life • Education for the Masses. Mathematical games and passtimes.
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via di San Bartolo a Cintoia, 19/a open: Monday to Friday 9-13; Sunday when activities are scheduled 15-19. Special openings for groups upon request closed: holidays and August For full calendar of activities see the website
www.archimede.ms Workshops for children see pp. 42-43 kudryashka / 123RF Archivio Fotografico
Pedalando nel passato: storie di uomini e di mestieri in collaboration with Comune di Firenze, Collezione Marco Paoletti, Fondazione Sistema Toscana, Opera Laboratori Fiorentini – Civita Group and Biblioteca delle Oblate – Archivio Storico Comunale di Firenze until 17 November 2013 The exhibition, organised on the occasion of the World Cycling Championship 2013, presents old bicycles and so-called traders’ bicycles of the Galileo Museum, which illustrate the most important stages in the development of two-wheeled vehicles, and focus on their symbolic and social significance. Among the museum’s models (which are usually kept in storage) are: the ancestor of the bicycle known as the draisine, which was propelled by the feet, ‘boneshakers’ – the first velocipedes with pedals and brakes – and penny-farthings, and up to the most recent ‘bicyclette’ and ‘bicicletto’. Forming part of the Marco Paoletti collection, on the other hand, are the traders’ bicycles dating from the early 20th century and up to the Second World War, vehicles modified and specially equipped for trades such as those plied by knife-grinders, cobblers and puppeteers. A montage of films, made by the Fondazione Sistema Toscana, accompanies the exhibition; these show films in which bicycles appear, from Charlie Chaplin’s The Circus (1928) and Vittorio De Sica’s Ladri di biciclette (1948), to the more recent Il cuore grande delle ragazze, Pupi Avati (2011).
galileo museum
exhibition
he Galileo Museum 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. It revolves around the figure of Galileo Galilei, authoritative and controversial protagonist of astronomy and modern science. The new arrangement of the museum emphasises the importance of Galileo in the museum’s collections and the research activities that identify the dual function of the Galileo Museum – as an Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza, an institute and a museum for the history of science.
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piazza dei Giudici, 1 open: Wednesday to Monday 9.30-18, Tuesday 9.30-13 closed: 1 January, 6 January, Easter, 1 May, 15 August, 1 November, 8 December, 25 and 26 December
www.museogalileo.it
Workshops for children see pp. 42-44
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Astronomical rings. Galileo Museum
The Planetarium The Florence planetarium was born out of a collaboration between the Fondazione Scienza e Tecnica, the Institute and Museum of the History of Science and the Astrophysics Observatory of Arcetri. Sessions are organised for the general public, held by astronomers from the Astrophysics Observatory of Arcetri, which focus on classic topics in astronomy, such as the motions of the Sun, Moon and planets, nebulae, galaxies, the Milky Way and the precession of the equinoxes, as well as subjects ranging from the observation of the sky to mythology, to astronomy in the Divine Comedy and in the history of the arts and sciences. Meetings offer a general description of the most important celestial phenomena and give the public information about astronomical events in the current month. Experts show the most commonly visible constellations, and those of the zodiac in the current season, explaining how to find them in the sky and the fascinating mythical tales behind them. open: Sunday at 15 and 16.30, Thursday at 21. Calendar available on the website www.fstfirenze.it. Booking required for Thursday openings, advised for Sunday openings 055 2343723 (Monday to Friday 9-16) fax 055 2478350 iscrizioni@fstfirenze.it
fondazione scienza e tecnica
he Fondazione Scienza e Tecnica was founded in 1987 with the aim to conserve and promote the patrimony of the Istituto Tecnico Toscano, founded in the Lorraine period, and more generally to spread scientific culture. The collections of the institute, formed over the 19th century, consist of two main nuclei corresponding to the Gabinetto di Fisica and the Gabinetto di Storia Naturale, with the Museo Tecnologico attached. On display are technical and scientific instruments and machines, collections in natural science, and models and manufactured products of Tuscan industries in the early 19th century. The quality, quantity and variety of objects forms a unique patrimony in the field of the history of science, technology and technical-scientific teaching. Since 2002 the Planetarium has also been in working order.
via Giuseppe Giusti, 29 open: Saturday 10-12 and 15-18 and Sunday 10-12 (entry every 30 minutes) upon request only 055 2343723 closed: July and August
www.fstfirenze.it
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civic museums
he Musei Civici Fiorentini are made up of a varied and comprehensive group of collections. Their function is to preserve and exhibit the rich heritage of Florentine art, encouraging its enjoyment by the general public. Belonging to this cultural patrimony are some of the most important Florentine churches, religious buildings and numerous collections donated by collectors, artists and city institutions.
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Palazzo Vecchio
The Roman Theatre of Florence (Palazzo Vecchio)
Palazzo Vecchio was built between 1299 and the early 14th century as the seat of the city’s highest authority; it became a ducal residence in the mid-16th century and 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 halls and private rooms sumptuously decorated by some of the most famous artists of the Florentine Renaissance and Mannerism, and enhanced with furnishings of the period and masterpieces like Verrocchio’s Putto, Donatello’s Judith, Michelangelo’s Genius of Victory and the decoration of Eleonora’s Chapel painted by Bronzino. The new exhibition area Traces of Florence (situated on the ground floor) enriches the tour through the Monumental Apartments: this section offers an overview of the historical development of Florence in terms of urban planning and landscape, through the permanent display of a selection of paintings, engravings and drawings and a section dedicated to temporary exhibitions.
The archaeological excavations below Palazzo Vecchio brought to light the remains of a Roman theatre (1st-2nd century AD). A series of galleries and walkways makes it possible to visit the fascinating vestiges of the ancient monument and the later medieval stratifications.
piazza della Signoria open: from 25 March to September Friday to Wednesday 9-24 (visits to the tower 9-21), Thursday 9-14; from October to March Friday to Wednesday 9-19 (visits to the tower 9-17), Thursday 9-14 (visits to the tower 10-14). Extraordinary openings on special occasions. In case of rain, no access to the tower closed: 25 December
www.museicivicifiorentini.it
www.museicivicifiorentini.it/palazzovecchio
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piazza della Signoria open: guided visits by appointment only. The excavations are accessible to visitors aged 10 and up, and partially accessible to disabled visitors accompanied by carers. For information and booking: 055 2768224 2768558 info@muse.comune.fi.it
www.musefirenze.it
Domenica del Fiorentino One Sunday every month special opening times for people born and/or resident in Florence and the Florentine province with free admission and activities. To participate visitors will need the free ‘Un bacione Card’, available at the Ufficio per le Relazioni con il Pubblico. Booking required for activities 055 2768224 2768558 info@muse.comune.fi.it
Workshops for children see p. 44
www.musefirenze.it
civic museums
Museo del Bigallo
Santa Maria Novella Museum
This museum takes its name from the Greater Company of Saint Mary of Bigallo. It houses 14th century frescoes, including the Madonna della Misericordia from 1342, which contains the first known image of Florence, and priceless 14th and 15th century paintings, including a triptych by Daddi, paintings by Domenico di Michelino and the Master of San Miniato, and sculptures by the architect of the Loggia, Master Alberto Arnoldi.
The monumental complex of Santa Maria Novella includes the church itself, the Cimitero degli Avelli, the cloisters decorated between the 14th and the 15th century – including the Chiostro Grande, the Chiostro dei Morti and the Chiostro Verde with important work by Paolo Uccello –, the Cappellone degli Spagnoli (Spanish Chapel), decorated with frescoes by Andrea di Bonaiuto, the Cappella degli Ubriachi and the Refectory with the late 16thcentury work of Alessandro Allori.
piazza di San Giovanni, 1 open: Friday to Sunday 10.30-16.30. Admission every hour with tour guide, only by appointment 055 288496 bigallo@comune.fi.it closed: 1 January, 1 May, 25 December
piazza di Santa Maria Novella and piazza della Stazione, 4 open: Museum Monday to Thursday 9-17.30, Friday 11-17.30, Saturday 9-17, Sunday and holidays 12-17 (from July to September), 13-17 (from October to June). Chiostro Grande open according to a special calendar available on the website closed: 1 January, Easter, 1 May, 15 August, 25 December
www.comune.fi.it
Museo Stefano Bardini Stefano Bardini (1854-1922) created a museum in the building he bought in 1881 to house his antiques’ business. The recent renovation entirely reflects the character of the collection as it was when Bardini left it to the city of Florence in 1922. Among more than 2,000 paintings, sculptures and objects in the applied arts are Tino da Camaino’s Charity, Donatello’s Madonna dei Cordai, Antonio del Pollaiolo’s Michael Archangel, Guercino’s Atlas and Pietro Tacca’s famous bronze Porcellino. There is also an interesting collection of medallions, bronzes, oriental carpets, 15thcentury marriage chests and the precious armoury. via dei Renai, 37 open: Friday to Monday 11-17; group booking Tuesday to Thursday closed: 1 January, Easter, 1 May, 15 August, 25 December
www.museicivicifiorentini.it/bardini
exhibition
www.museicivicifiorentini.it/smn
Brancacci Chapel The 13th-century church of Santa Maria del Carmine houses the Brancacci Chapel, universally known for the frescoes illustrating the Life of Saint Peter by Masaccio and Masolino (1425-1427). The frescoes were completed by Filippino Lippi between 1481 and 1482. A visit to the museum also includes the cloister and the Sala del Cenacolo housing the Last Supper by Alessandro Allori (1582).
piazza del Carmine, 14 open: Monday and Wednesday to Saturday 10-17; Sunday and mid-week holidays 13-17. Booking necessary for groups closed: 1 January, 7 January, Easter, 1 May, 16 July, 15 August, 25 December
www.museicivicifiorentini.it/brancacci
Salvatore Romano Foundation The museum in the historic refectory of the monastery of Santo Spirito houses sculptures, architectural fragments and wall paintings, mainly medieval, donated to the city in 1946 by the antiquarian Salvatore Romano.
piazza Santo Spirito, 29 open: Saturday to Monday 10-16 closed: 1 January, Easter, 1 May, 15 August, 25 December
Ritorni arrangement Pier Luigi Pizzi Museo Stefano Bardini 5-13 October 2013 For the 18th Biennale dell’Antiquariato in Florence, the residence belonging to the celebrated, and oft-criticised, artdealer Bardini hosts 35 works that have been recovered from antiquarians and returned to Italy. The exhibition aims to prove wrong the widely held belief that Italian antique-dealers were responsible for the dispersion of national treasures, failing to acknowledge their role in the recovery of artworks of great importance. After the Second World War Italian art-dealers saw potential new collectors in the emerging industrial classes. They therefore took advantage of the reappearance on the market of pieces coming from the dismemberment of English and American collections, giving rise to an extraordinary recovery of dispersed artworks. A work by Zhang Huan at the Forte di Belvedere
www.museicivicifiorentini.it/romano
Forte di Belvedere Reopened on the occasion of the Zhang Huan exhibition, the Forte di Belvedere becomes once again a place dedicated to contemporary art. The fortress was built around 1590 during the Grand Duchy of Ferdinando I, to designs by Bernardo Buontalenti, and came to incorporate the Palazzina di Belvedere, built about 20 years earlier by Bartolomeo Ammannati, and now housing the Collezioni del Novecento (closed to the public). via di San Leonardo, 1
www.museicivicifiorentini.it/ fortebelvedere
exhibition
Zhang Huan
L’Anima e la Materia curated by Olivia Turchi Palazzo Vecchio and Forte di Belvedere until 13 October 2013 The exhibition features some recent works by the Chinese artist, known for his colossal pieces made of ash and incense, which disintegrate during the period of an exhibition. On a visit to Florence, the artist was impressed by Florentine art; his reflections are expressed in an exhibition that aims at a fertile dialogue between tradition and experimentation, between earthly and spiritual reality, juxtaposing historical and contemporary culture and drawing inspiration from both Chinese and western iconography. open: Palazzo Vecchio Thursday 9-14, Friday to Wednesday 9-19; Forte di Belvedere Friday to Wednesday 10-17
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house museums
Museo di Casa Martelli
Palazzo Martelli, which became a State museum in 1999, was opened to the public in 2009 to make available for general viewing the historic home and artistic collections of this noble family. At the beginning of the 16th century the Martelli, bankers and allies of the Medici, bought a property that was to grow in the following years. Since the 17th century the first floor has housed an art collection that today retains its original arrangement. This house museum is, therefore, not the result of a posthumous reconstruction but derives from the centuries-old stratification of a family’s life. via Ferdinando Zannetti, 8 open: Thursday afternoon from 14 and Saturday morning from 9, by appointment 055 294883
www.polomuseale.firenze.it/musei/casamartelli
Palazzo Davanzati or Museum of the Florentine House An almost unique example of a typical 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, 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 the antique dealer Elia Volpi who restored the palace and furnished it with items from his collection. The palazzo was later bought by the State and opened to the public in 1956. 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 tondo decorated with the Gioco del Civettino (Game of the Fop) by Giovanni di ser Giovanni known as lo Scheggia. Sculptures include Antonio Rossellino’s Bust of a young man. Of great interest is the collection of ceramics and majolica (14th-18th century) and the rare wall decorations, such as those in the Sala dei Pappagalli and the bedroom of the Castellana di Vergy. via Porta Rossa, 13 open: every day 8.15-13.50; the second and third floors are accessible by appointment 055 2388610 closed: 2nd and 4th Sunday, 1st, 3rd and 5th Monday of the month, 1 January, 1 May, 25 December
www.polomuseale.firenze.it/musei/davanzati
Casa Guidi After their secret marriage (1846) the poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning fled to Italy and lived in Florence until Elizabeth’s death (1861); the house was bought in 1971 by the Browning Institute of New York which restored the apartments, filling them with objects and furniture, some of which once belonged to the couple. piazza di San Felice, 8 open: from April to November, Monday, Wednesday and Friday 15-18
Viaggio in Oriente
exhibition
Fotografie dall’Africa a Casa Martelli curated by Francesca Fiorelli Malesci until 7 November 2013
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The exotic, mysterious attraction linking westerners to the Middle East and Mediterranean Africa started with the military campaigns of Napoleon. In the following decades travellers, artists, archaeologists and scholars traversed those unknown sands, and the landscapes and strange atmospheres of the Orient became the favourite subjects of photographers (between 1869 and 1900 there were over 250 in Cairo, 100 of them French). Commercial production took off, winning over a clientele of tourists who started flocking to Eastern lands from the 1860s onwards. From the time of the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, Egypt became a must for all travellers. Among them was the French photographer Émile Béchard, who opened a studio in Cairo where he lived until 1880. In addition to his extensive work on the great monuments of ancient Egypt, Béchard became known for his genre scenes and portraits of the peoples of northern Africa, shown in the collection of photographs of Casa Martelli on display in the exhibition. The 24 intense images were in fact purchased by Carlo Martelli (1850-1945) – father of the last generation whose inheritance has been acquired by the museum – during his travels to the Holy Land in the company of a group of Florentine friends, an example of that well-to-do clientele animated by the desire to make the pilgrimage to the Holy Land or discover the sites of Egypt. The young Carlo, intrigued by the colours, lights and costumes of the people, enthusiastically relived the experience common to travellers, painters and not least photographers, who had sought, with sensitivity and technical aids, to make them their own. The caravan, which left Livorno on 26 August 1879, stopped at Alexandria, Cairo, Port Said and Jaffa, until reaching the strongly desired holy destinations of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Emmaus and the Dead Sea, the Sea of Galilee, Nazareth, and finally Damascus and Beirut, from where he would return by sea to Alexandria and from there reach Italy on 24 October. open: Thursday 14-19 and Saturday 9-14
House of Piero Bargellini Purchased in 1946, it was in the 16th-century Palazzo Da Cepparello where Piero Bargellini (1897-1980) carried out his literary and civic work. Hundreds of letters, and volumes inscribed to Bargellini, are kept in the study, where he met with artists, writers and people involved in cinema and theatre, and where he worked until the last day of his life. On the walls are magnificent 14th-century frescoes, taken from the church of Santo Stefano alle Busche in Poggio alla Malva. Palazzo Bargellini, via delle Pinzochere, 3 open: by appointment 055 241724 bargellini.studio@libero.it
Fondazione Primo Conti The Foundation is housed in the 15th-century Villa Le Coste where the artist lived for many years. Established in 1980 as a Documentation and Research Centre on the Historic Avant Garde, 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, and Samminiatelli) together represent a unique resource in Italy for the scholarly study and understanding of avant-garde movements. Villa Le Coste, via Giovanni Dupré, 18, Fiesole open: Museum Monday to Friday 9-13; Saturday, Sunday and the afternoon, for groups by appointment; Archive Monday to Friday 9-13, by appointment
www.fondazioneprimoconti.org
palazzo medici riccardi
House of Dante The house dates back to 1911 when the architect Giuseppe Castellucci reproduced a rather quaint medieval style building in the area in which the poet was said to have lived. The museum illustrates the life of Dante Alighieri and the Florence of his times. The Museo degli Originali includes medieval edged weapons, ceramics and objects once in daily use. via Santa Margherita, 1 open: from October to March Tuesday to Sunday 10-17; from April to September every day 10-18
www.museocasadidante.it
Museo Casa Rodolfo Siviero The house was built in the neo-Renaissance style in 1875. Rodolfo Siviero, known as the James Bond of the art world for his contribution in ensuring that many stolen works of art were returned to Italy, bought the building in 1944 and lived there until 1983. He left the house to the Regione Toscana on the condition it became a public museum. As well as furnishings, archaeological finds and art objects of every type and period, in the collection there is a nucleus of 20th-century works by, among others, Soffici, Annigoni, Manzù, Berti, and de Chirico. lungarno Serristori, 1-3 open: Saturday, from October to May 10-18, from June to September 10-14 and 15-19; Sunday and Monday, all year 10-13; group booking Tuesday to Friday on request at casasiviero@regione.toscana.it closed: 1 January, 1 May, 24 June, 15 August, 25 and 26 December
Detective dell’arte see pp. 42-43
www.museocasasiviero.it
exhibitions
Bronzino, De Chirico e altri restauri per Casa Siviero 19 October 2013-6 January 2014 The exhibition presents works from Casa Siviero restored during 2012-2013: among them are a Portrait of Cosimo I from the circle of Agnolo Bronzino (second half of the 16th century), the Portrait of Matilde Forti Castelfranco (1921) and Horsemen with Red Berets (1930s) by Giorgio de Chirico, and a series of liturgical objects (13th-16th century), restored by the Opificio delle Pietre Dure.
L’archivio e la fototeca di Giorgio Castelfranco 27 January-March 2014 On Holocaust Memorial Day Casa Siviero (27 January 2014) stages an exhibition on the art historian Giorgio Castelfranco, a friend, art patron and collector of Giorgio de Chirico, and the person who was the link between Rodolfo Siviero and the father of Metaphysics. Castelfranco’s remarkable collection of Giorgio de Chirico paintings and drawings was dispersed in 1939, following the introduction of racial laws in Italy. The exhibition presents documents and photographs from the collection of Castelfranco (the first owner of Casa Siviero, where he lived between the two wars), left by his heirs to the Center for Italian Renaissance Studies of Harvard University at Villa I Tatti.
event
Luoghi insoliti 20 October and 17 November 2013 Special opening on the occasion of the initiative promoted by the Regione Toscana Booking required luoghiinsoliti@regione.toscana.it 055 4385616
exhibitions
Dentro e fuori l’isola, appunti di viaggio 1-30 October 2013
I gioielli di Talani 1-30 November 2013
L’Arte di Lolita Valderrama Savage 1-31 December 2013
Tenui riflessioni 1-30 January 2014
alazzo Medici Riccardi is the seat of the Florentine provincial administration. The building is one of the most interesting palaces in the heart of Florence, both in its architecture and decoration, and in the cultural initiatives it houses. The museum includes Michelozzo’s courtyard, Benozzo Gozzoli’s Cappella dei Magi, the room with ceiling frescoes by Luca Giordano, and the museum of antique sculpture.
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via Cavour, 3 open: Thursday to Tuesday 9-18
www.palazzo-medici.it www.provincia.fi.it
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casa buonarroti
his fine 17th-century palazzo, built by Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger to celebrate his family’s fame, 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, by exhibiting many of his works, such as 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.
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via Ghibellina, 70 open: Wednesday to Monday 10-17 closed: 1 January, Easter, 15 August, 25 December
casa vasari
www.casabuonarroti.it
n 1561 Cosimo I donated a house in borgo Santa Croce to Giorgio Vasari, in recognition of his services. Enriched by a noteworthy collection of paintings, the house remained the property of the family until the death of its last member in 1687; the works of art were dispersed and some of the rooms were modified. The artist decorated some of the rooms with the help of Jacopo Zucchi and others; among them the Sala Grande, fortunately unchanged over the centuries, decorated with frescoes inspired by the Arts and the supremacy of painting, in the form of scenes taken from Pliny, of allegorical images and of the portraits of 13 artists chosen by Vasari. Following a period of neglect, on the occasion of the fifth centenary of the birth of the Aretine artist in 2011, a long and complex restoration made available to visitors a building of extraordinary interest.
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borgo Santa Croce open: by appointment with guided tour every Saturday at 10, 11 and 12. Information: Horne Museum 055 244661 info@museohorne.it
www.museohorne.it
exhibitions
Michelangelo e il ‘concorso’ leonino del 1515 per la facciata della basilica di San Lorenzo a Firenze curated by Pietro Ruschi until 6 October 2013 Complementing the exhibition on Leo X being staged at the Medici Chapels (see p. 13), the museum has set up a section with a display of the Wooden model for the façade of San Lorenzo, together with some autograph drawings by Michelangelo, documenting various phases of the project, and one of his letters addressed to the pope.
Antonio Canova
La bellezza e la memoria curated by Giuliana Ericani until 21 October 2013 From the Museo Civico of Bassano del Grappa, which has ten albums and eight sketchbooks by Canova, about 40 tempera monochromes, sketches and models have been selected for this exhibition. Visitors are guided along two routes linked to the ideas of beauty and memory. The embodiment of ideal beauty associated with the female figure can be seen in the extraordinary plaster of the Venere Italica, designed for the Tribune of the Uffizi (1804-1812), while the theme of memory is presented through the design of the tomb monument, which aimed to perpetuate the memory of a person, with particular reference to the Tomb of Vittorio Alfieri in Santa Croce. open: following the museum opening hours. Openings on special request for groups 055 241752 fax 055 241698
Italian sign language at the Casa Vasari and the Horne Museum In collaboration with the Regione Toscana and the Ente Nazionale Sordi, special visits for the deaf organised by the Horne Museum 8 October, 12 November and 10 December at 15
Antonio Canova, Venus Italica
Samurai!
Armature giapponesi dalla Collezione Stibbert curated by Enrico Colle and Francesco Civita until 3 November 2013 The terrifying yet seductive allure that emanates, even today, from the magnificent armour and extravagant helmets – consider the many interpretations by contemporary artists and designers – is the starting-point for this exhibition highlighting the materials and handicraft techniques with which Japanese artists created true works of art, where the power of steel was made even more fascinating by the contrasting embellishments in iridescent silks, beautifully tanned leathers and splendid lacquers. Here are 70 masterpieces, striking armour, fanciful helmets, terrifying blades, unusual saddles and stirrups, painted and gilded screens, boxes in coloured and shining lacquer; armour and objects belonging to the Samurai, men ready to die at any moment for a master, but who loved surrounding themselves with objects of a refined elegance.
stibbert museum
exhibition
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 creation of the Japanese armoury was one of Stibbert’s passions and he went on collecting up until the last months of his life, hundreds of objects that document the styles of armour and the splendid quality of edged weapons from the ‘Land of the Rising Sun’. Today the collection is considered one of the most important in the western world.
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via Frederick Stibbert, 26 open: Monday to Wednesday 10-14, Friday to Sunday 10-18 closed: 1 January, Easter, 1 May, 15 August, 25 December
www.museostibbert.it
Curated by Elisabetta Nardinocchi and Matilde Casati, a new permanent exhibition of drawings, prints, documents and books from the library of the Anglo-Florentine connoisseur describes the intellectual climate which influenced and informed the interests of the esteemed scholar and writer and his friendships with writers and artists, art historians and collectors, from Walt Whitman to Bernard Berenson. The exhibition also recounts Horne’s contribution to the study of the Florentine Renaissance and his support for the Associazione in difesa di Firenze antica, founded in 1898 to oppose the demolition of the historic centre of the city, which was to the Anglo-Americans a ‘dream’ to evoke and protect. The exhibition includes a video installation where a framed portrait of Horne ‘comes alive’ and describes his life to visitors.
horne museum
Horne & Friends. Florence, a dream to safeguard and preserve
n 1911, the English architect and art historian Herbert Percy Horne purchased Palazzo Corsi 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 6,000 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 Workshops Giotto to Simone Martini, for children Masaccio, Filippino Lippi, see Domenico Beccafumi, and pp. 42-43 Giambologna), but above all as a home, decorated with precious items dating from the 1200s to the 1600s, in which to Special relive the past and openings discover the customs On the occasion of the and art as they were exhibition Il Rinascimento da in 15th- and 16thFirenze a Parigi at Villa Bardini, the Horne Museum is also open century Florence.
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one Sunday a month 6 October, 10 November and 15 December from 10 to 13
via dei Benci, 6 open: Monday to Saturday 9-13. Openings on special request.
www.museohorne.it
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palazzo strozzi
exhibition
www.palazzostrozzi.org
piazza degli Strozzi open: every day 9-20, Thursday 9-23
The Russian Avant-garde, Siberia and the East Kandinsky, Malevich, Filonov, Goncharova
curated by John E. Bowlt, Nicoletta Misler, Evgenia Petrova 27 September 2013-19 January 2014
This retrospective uses 130 works of art – 79 paintings, watercolours and drawings, 15 sculptures and 36 ethnic and anthropological items and popular engravings – to explore the relationship between Russian art and the Orient, thanks to the work of such celebrated painters as Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Natalia Goncharova, Mikhail Larionov, Léon Bakst, Alexandre Benois and Pavel Filonov, artists who were aware of the importance of the Orient and who made their contribution to a rich cultural debate that made its mark in a lasting way. This is the first international exhibition to examine the fundamental importance of Oriental and Eurasian sources to Russian Modernism. Neolithic stone figures, Siberian shaman rituals, popular Chinese prints, Japanese engravings, Theosophical and Anthroposophical doctrine and Indian philosophy are a few of the elements which inspired Russia’s new artists and writers, the ‘Barbarians’ of the Avant-garde, early in the century, as they developed their aesthetic and theoretical ideas shortly before the October Revolution of 1917 – a way of rediscovering their own history and origins by transfiguring the echoes that reached them from those distant places. The exhibition encourages the visitor to explore the most innovative Russian trends (Symbolism, Cubo-Futurism, Suprematism and Constructivism) not by the yardstick of what was going on in Paris or in Milan, nor yet as an imitation of Orientalism in the Western sense, but as a genuine tribute to the East: Siberia, China, Tibet, Japan and India.
Exhibition walkthrough Introduction The exhibition opens with the guard-like presence of a kamennaja baba (a Paleolithic stone statue) beckoning to the visitor to enter on a rite of passage through Siberia and the Orient leading to the Russian Avant-garde. The large statue is surrounded by such iconic works as Kandinsky’s Black Spot, Malevich’s Black Circle and Goncharova’s Emptiness, symbols of the cosmogonic visions underlying both Oriental and Shamanic culture. Exotic Sources: from Greece to Siam This section conjures up the long journey which took Nicholas, future Tsar of All the Russias, from Trieste to Vladivostok and overland from Vladivostok back to St. Petersburg across the sweeping plains of Siberia in 1890-1891. The expedition was designed to bolster relations with the people on the empire’s Eastern border, but it was also a voyage of initiation for the 22 year old Nicholas, which helped to popularise knowledge of exotic lands such as India, Ceylon, Java, Siam, Japan and China in Russia, forging the future tsar’s contacts with unexplored territory and the ‘minor’ and ‘primitive’ peoples of Siberia. The crown prince exchanged gifts with the local authorities at every stage of his journey, and these gifts were later to be displayed in an exhibition at the Hermitage Museum which was to go a long way towards boosting these distant cultures’ popularity. Enchanted by the Orient The Far East Here, the focus is on the growing attraction that Buddhism exercised in aristocratic circles in St Petersburg and the mounting interest in Oriental art. The Far East, the following section, is split into three subsections: Japan, Beloved Enemy; Chinoiserie; and China: Empire of Signs.
Aleksandr Nikolaev, The betrothed, 1920, tempera on paper attached to wood. Moscow, The State Museum of Oriental Art
upcoming Pontormo and Rosso
Diverging Paths of Mannerism
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curated by Carlo Falciani and Antonio Natali 8 March 20 July 2014
East or West? Here the extent to which Russia has always found it difficult to consider Asia and the Orient as ‘totally other’ is examined. Visitors will encounter numerous Orients on this particular path, starting with Islam (Turkish, then Caucasian), followed by the Mongol Buddhist and the Christian Caucasian Orients. The presence of Asian minorities within its borders and its proximity to very different societies such as Turkey, Persia and China, led to the development of expressions of self-representation that were to culminate in the creation of the geographical and political concept of Eurasia, which saw Russia as an independent continental area stretching from the Carpathians to the Pacific, a huge plain centring on the steppes, whose nomadic peoples, the heirs to Genghis Khan, had made such a significant ethnic and cultural contribution to Russia. The kamennye baby. Custodians of Space This section explores the Avant-garde artists’ fascination with the ancient image of the kamennye baby rooted in the steppes of the empire, a petrified presence of archaic and immortal forms of worship. These images (together with the wooden toys sold at fairs and at the lubki) were one of the primitive sources to which the ‘New Barbarians’ turned for inspiration in their search for new plastic forms alternative to Cubism. Effigies of Wisdom. Emissaries of the Cosmos This section reiterates the need for the artist to be in total harmony with nature, stones, water, trees and animals, becoming a part of the very cosmos that can both gently welcome into its womb or, at will, becoming threateningly ambiguous. Gestures and Rituals Major works of the Avant-garde are displayed alongside precious Oriental and ethnographical items. Thus a Shaman Drum of the Khakhasy people (from the Enisei region) sits side by side with Kandinsky’s Composition with Grey Oval and a Ritual Mask of the Koryak People (Kamchatka) is in dialogue with Malevich’s Head. The Presence of the Forest Items collected by ethnographers during their expeditions are displayed alongside masterpieces of the Avant-garde. The small idols, each of which had a very specific and often therapeutic function, thus became the ideal interlocutors of the artists’ existential malaise. Avant-garde writers and poets would listen to their incomprehensible language, seeking to assimilate it in a new form of artistic expression. Sylvan Spirits This final section brings a circular journey to a close by displaying a large sculpture by Sergei Konenkov which, in the enigmatic gesture of its raised hand, reminds us of ‘absence’, of ‘zero’ as a Nirvanic element at the origin of everything, close to Aleksandr Borisov’s Eclipse in Novaia Zemlia in 1896 with its dialogue between light and shade in an ‘unknown land’ pregnant with both potential and foreboding, at once material and transcendant.
Families at Palazzo Strozzi exhibition related activities for families see pp. 42-43 and 45
Activities and events
palazzo strozzi
Background as Foreground. Oriental Prints and the Avant-garde This section illustrates the artists’ approach to engravings, especially the popular lubki, which they introduced into their pictures not only as a change of scenery in their narrative but also as a tool for modelling painted space.
The goal of Palazzo Strozzi is to be a catalyst for the city and its hinterland, each exhibition encouraging visitors to appreciate Florence from a new and always different perspective. Youth and adults at Palazzo Strozzi A rich programme of events, lectures, courses and more with which to explore art in an enjoyable way, with something for everyone. • Thursday Squared. A new way to experience Thursday evenings at Palazzo Strozzi a full evening of free programming devoted to exploring art in all its forms. Sip a cocktail at the Orient Cafè in the Palazzo’s atmospheric courtyard as you allow yourself to be drawn into the activities offered by Creatives in the Courtyard, giving free rein to your ideas, sharing them with others and creating an endless string of new objects. Don’t miss the Acoustic Carpet! Palazzo Strozzi Courtyard second Thursday of the month from 19.30 Information: edu@palazzostrozzi.org Calendar on www.palazzostrozzi.org
Passport In keeping with what has now become a tradition at Palazzo Strozzi, the exhibition is accompanied by a passport guiding visitors to places associated with Russia and the Russians in Tuscany, including guided tours to sites generally closed to the public. Just as there is a Florence of the English, of the French and of the Germans, so there is also a Florence of the Russians. Maurizio Bossi writes: ‘in the panorama of foreign colonies in Florence, the presence of the Russians tends to offer a unique fusion between their own never-forgotten and constantly celebrated culture, and the life of the city experienced with a sense of participation in which sentiment plays a substantial role’.
Lectures and Concerts Strong cooperation with the International Lyceum Club of Florence has resulted in the organisation of three conferences • Thursday at Palazzo Strozzi designed to tie in with the exhibition Palazzo Strozzi stays open until 23. From and of two significant musical evenings 18 free admission to the Strozzina and • Lectures (Italian only) special ticket 2x1 to the exhibition The Russian Avant-garde, Siberia and the East. Francesco Galluzzi, Shamanism in Russian Art; Vincenzo Farinella, Kandinsky and every Thursday Primitivism; Lucia Tonini, An Empire • Thursday for Young People Heading East: Tsarevich Nikolay Florentine high school students from the Liceo Artistico Statale Leon Battista Alberti Aleksandrovich’s Journey in 1890-1891 and the Liceo Machiavelli-Capponi become and the New Direction in National Art • Musical evenings guides for a night in the exhibitions 1913 – The Russian Avant-garde Between The Russian Avant-garde and the Past and the Future in Le Sacre du Unstable Territory. Italian only. Printemps 28 November and 16 January at 20-22 • Interactive Rooms: the Radio Studio the exhibition also features a real Radio Studio in which visitors can record their own thoughts about the experience of travel, exploration and emigration. Every Thursday at 9.35 (repeated on Sundays at 11.30) ControRadio broadcasts the best interviews conducted during the week. • Touchtable through the Piano Nobile touchtable the public can explore the fascinating photographs of the journey that Tsarevich Nicholas made in 1890-1891 to the East and the North of Russia, photographs of gifts received on that journey which were then exhibited at the Hermitage Museum, as well as photographs of the ethnographic expeditions in Siberia, which strongly influenced Russian artists. The other two touchtables invite you to play with objects from the exhibition to create your own imaginary museum.
introduction by Eleonora Negri and Lucia Tonini, with a performance of I. Stravinsky’s transcription of his Le Sacre du Printemps, for four-hands, played by the piano duo Antonio Ballista and Massimo Giuseppe Bianchi
Preludes to the Avant-garde in Russian Music concert, music by M. Musorgsky, A. Skryabin, I. Stravinsky; Beatrice Muntoni on the piano
Related exhibition From Russia With Love. The Country of the Tsars in Postcards from the Caruso Collection Museo Enrico Caruso, Villa Bellosguardo (Lastra a Signa) 21 September 2013-28 February 2014 The tenor Enrico Caruso visited Russia in 1899-1900 for a tour of the theatres of St. Petersburg and Moscow, bringing back ‘souvenirs’ that range from an award from Nicholas II himself to the postcards that were one of his chief hobbies as a collector. Some 400 postcards are on display alongside other mementos of Russia at the museum in the villa and gardens of Bellosguardo, which the tenor owned between 1906 and 1921. From the ‘Tolstoy affair’ to the legendary Cossacks, the exhibition provides a picture of the Tsars’ country at the turn of the 19th century, with which many Italians are still unfamiliar.
Touchscreen The touchscreen in the Palazzo Strozzi Courtyard – a permanent feature for every exhibition – enables visitors to discover the Tuesday at the movies places that have marked the presence of the The programme created by Fondazione Russian colony in Florence. Palazzo Strozzi and Cinema Odeon Firenze involves the screening of classic avant-garde Guided tours movies and côté ethnographic films related Guided tours of the following: to the Piano Nobile exhibition, along with the Contemporary Archives ‘A. Bonsanti’ movies correlating to the CCC Strozzina of the Gabinetto G.P. Vieusseux; exhibition investigating the contamination the Primo Conti Foundation in Fiesole; between territories and nations in our and visit-lectures of the Nativity and St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church globalised era. and of the Gabinetto G.P. Vieusseux.
Cinema Odeon, piazza degli Strozzi 8, 15 and 22 October, 7 and 14 January at 20.30. Admission free
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in the now
Sigalit Landau, DeadSee, 2005, still taken from video. Courtesy of the artist
exhibition
Unstable Territory Borders and identity in contemporary art
Kader Attia, Zanny Begg & Oliver Ressler, Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin, Paolo Cirio, The Cool Couple, Tadashi Kawamata, Sigalit Landau, Richard Mosse, Paulo Nazareth, Jo Ractliffe
curated by Walter Guadagnini and Franziska Nori 11 October 2013 19 January 2014
The astonishing development of mobility for both people and goods, the digitalisation of communication and knowledge, migration and an increasingly global economy have radically changed people’s perception of territories, borders and boundaries. The term ‘territory’ does not simply refer to a geographical or spatial area, it also refers to a concept of belonging that extends into the personal, psychological and mental dimension, and in a broader context it is also social and cultural, and related to the issue of identity. The works on display reflect different approaches, lifestyles and ways of perceiving the unstable relationship between identity, territory and borders in an age of great expectations (and illusions) regarding a borderless society, a shared global territory. Photographs, videos and installations spark reflections on the notion of the border as discovery or barrier, on the hybridisation between cosmopolitism and territorial claims, on the figure of the artist himself as traveller, nomad or experimenter teetering on the edge of physical and symbolic territories.
Centre for Contemporary Culture Strozzina Created in 2007 as part of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, the Centre houses exhibition projects of contemporary art which explore themes and modes of expression with an interdisciplinary approach through meetings with artists, debates, conferences, workshops and video projections. The CCC Strozzina programme expressly centres on the artistic developments of recent years, favouring multimedia projects and relational and interactive forms of art.
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Palazzo Strozzi, piazza degli Strozzi open: Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday to Sunday 10-20, Thursday 10-23 The Strozzina ticket is valid for a month; a special ticket gives entry to both exhibitions in the Palazzo
www.strozzina.org www.palazzostrozzi.org
events linked to the exhibition Guided tours Free guided tours, looking in depth at the work on show and its artists every Saturday and Sunday at 16.30 Language through the arts Conversational guided tours in English and a special workshop tailored for foreign students studying Italian booking required 055 3917137 Thursdays at the CCC Strozzina A series of talks and lectures given by artists and experts to know the arts and the thought of our time every Thursday at 18.30 free entry Full schedule of activities on website www.strozzina.org
Workshops for children see pp. 42-43
in the now
Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci The purpose of the Centro Pecci is to interpret and display the cutting edge in international contemporary art. In addition to the permanent collection of works, the Centre periodically stages temporary exhibitions, workshops and events.
viale della Repubblica, 277, Prato open: Monday and Wednesday to Friday 10-19, 1 January 15-19 closed: 25 and 31 December The permanent collection is closed for works until the end of 2013
www.centropecci.it
Museo Marino Marini An exhibition space devoted to contemporary art. The collection of the artist Marino Marini’s own works is permanently on show, along with exhibits, and in-depth learning and training activities.The restored Rucellai Chapel can be visited from inside the museum. piazza di San Pancrazio open: Monday and Wednesday to Saturday 10-17 closed: holidays and the month of August
www.museomarinomarini.it
exhibitions
Early one morning
Deimantas Narkevicˇius. Da capo curated by Alberto Salvadori and Andrea Viliani 23 September-23 November 2013 The Lithuanian artist works on storytelling, using videos and films and focuses on the investigation into perception of history and the mechanisms that transform it, starting from different ideologies and utopias. The artist explores the recent history of his country and the socialist past of the countries linked to the former Soviet Union, by using found footage and autobiographies to make films built around reflections on specific events and curiosities linked to art and history. Given the architecture of the space and the sheer strength of Marino Marini’s sculptures Narkevicˇius’s exhibition is principally of sound installations, some directly inspired by the museum’s space.
Early one morning
Intercamera plastica. A donation to the museum
For the ‘Giornata del Contemporaneo’ (5 October 2013), the Centro Pecci presents Intercamera plastica by Paolo Scheggi (1940-1971), a practicable monochromatic environment donated to the museum by Franca and Cosima Scheggi. Produced in 1966-1967 and rebuilt in 2007, the work occupies the space of a single room, within which four distinct areas are created. The enveloping form of these volumes, associated with the modular, serial dynamic of the carefully placed circular apertures in the walls, proposes an integration between the spaces of the work, the visitor and the time of the visit itself, developing the ideas of Lucio Fontana in a plastic and architectural way. Scheggi’s Intercamera plastica defines a continuity between pictorial object and architecture, generating a model, a room or more simply a place that tends to stimulate the observation of fullness and void, to create a harmony between the abstract and concrete dimension.
La statua calda
The Rucellai Chapel
curated by Simone Menegoi December 2013 February 2014 A selection of ‘performative sculptures’, from the 1960s to today, are modest creations – wood bases, metal tubes, elastic placed on the floor –, whose crucial element is in their use. These are not for contemplation, but instead objects with which to create postures, or fulfil ordinary or paradoxical actions, like sitting or holding a difficult pose, speaking with someone or oneself, listening to a sound. True sculpture is not an object in itself, but the dynamic union of the object and the body that interacts with it. So, the works displayed ask the visitor to adopt the role of actor, calling for actions to be carried out, perhaps with others, following the instructions of the artist.
The Rucellai Chapel, reopened to the public at the start of 2013, after restoration, and now part of the Marino Marini Museum tour, was built for the Rucellai family inside the church of San Pancrazio, which is now the space of the museum. The chapel was completed in 1467 by Leon Battista Alberti for Giovanni di Paolo Rucellai. Inside the architect created a tempietto, a scale model of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, following the fashion in the West to make copies of Christ’s tomb, born from the memory and devotion of pilgrims on their return from the Holy Land. The marble decoration was probably made by the sculptor Giovanni di Bertino. In the room before entering the chapel there is a video giving a history of the Rucellai chapel and Leon Battista Alberti’s involvement in its construction. open: parallel with the hours of the Marino Marini Museum. Visits every 30 minutes for a maximum of 25 people. Booking required for groups 055 219432 info@museomarinomarini.it Paolo Scheggi, Intercamera plastica, 1967-2007 (projected and realised 1966-1967, reconstructed 2007). Leaves of wood attached to a holding wooden structure in yellow acrylic. Photo Serge Domingie, Florence
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calendar of exhibitions and events
Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze
Corso Triennale di Fotografia
in the now
Places for contemporary art Villa Romana
Founded in 1784, today committed to developing the creative potential of its students with university level courses.
A centre of independent artistic production, it organises workshops, symposiums and exhibitions and events dedicated to contemporary art.
via Ricasoli, 66
via Senese, 68
www.accademia.firenze.it
Fondazione Studio Marangoni
www.villaromana.org
Monday to Saturday 15-19 or by appointment 055 280368 exhibitions@studiomarangoni.it
Base
Fondazione Studio Marangoni
Cultural association and art Devoted to contemporary gallery, supports in-depth photography with courses, research and collaboration workshops, lectures and exhibitions. with international artists. via San Zanobi, 32r e 19r
www.studiomarangoni.it
Fondazione Pitti Immagine Discovery
Fashion, visual arts, cinema, photography, advertising, architecture and music. via Faenza, 111; Stazione Leopolda, viale Fratelli Rosselli, 5
www.pittimmagine.com
Exhibition of the final works of students in the 3rd year of their course until 19 October 2013
IX Giornata 50 Days del contemporaneo of International A whole day dedicated Cinema to contemporary art and its public with special openings and events 5 October 2013 various venues of the city and Centro Pecci of Prato
Tempo Reale Festival 2013
Festival Internazionale di Cinema e Donne 25-30 October France Odeon 31 October-3 November Florence Queer Festival 6-12 November Lo Schermo dell’Arte Film Festival 13-17 November River to River. Florence Indian Film Festival 22-28 November Festival dei Popoli 30 November-7 December Una finestra sul Nord. Rassegna di Cinema Finlandese 8-11 December Premio N.I.C.E 13 December Immagini e Suoni del Mondo. Festival del Film Etnomusicale 14-15 December
Frastuoni e sospiri. via di San Niccolò, 18r Universi sonori www.baseitaly.org del lavoro 6th year of the festival Tempo Reale devoted to music research European reference point for new centred on the music technologies. It collaborates with festivals, offering performances relationship between sound and work by international artists. 4-17 October 2013 Villa Strozzi, via Pisana, 77 (to move to Forte di Belvedere) Villa Strozzi Limonaia www.temporeale.it and other venues of the city
The New Florence Biennale
alinari museum
Fortezza da Basso 30 November-8 December 2013 The International Biennale of Contemporary Art in its 9th year is devoted to Ethics DNA of Art. Among the award winners are Anish Kapoor and Franco Mussida. www.florencebiennale.org
exhibitions
Izis
Il Poeta della Fotografia curated by Manuel Bidermanas and Armelle Canitrot 7 September 2013-6 January 2014 Izis Bidermanas (1911-1980), poet of the visual image, portraitist and reporter, was one of the great humanist photographers of the last century. In spite of numerous acolades and a presence in major international collections, he remains to this day a little known artist. The exhibition illustrates the work of the Lithuanian photographer who, at the age of 19, fled the poverty of his homeland to reach the ‘Paris of his dreams’. The exhibition showcases a selection of about 120 photographs, books and documents chosen by the photographer’s son, and is a fascinating portrait of an artist who sought solace in dreams. With a penetrating use of the light and rare sensitivity, his photographs are, years later, a precious testimony of great poetry.
he MNAF (Alinari National Photographic Museum), managed by the Fratelli Alinari Fondazione per la Storia della Fotografia (Alinari Brothers Foundation for the History of Photography), 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.
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piazza di Santa Maria Novella, 14a red open: Thursday to Tuesday 10-18.30 closed: August
www.mnaf.it
the initiative in its 7th year includes nine international festivals with reviews, prizes, premières and meetings devoted to women 25 October 15 December 2013 Cinema Odeon
Capa100
Robert Capa in Italia in collaboration with Museo Nazionale di Budapest and International Center of Photography New York 10 January-30 March 2014
Workshops for children see p. 44 Lagny, 1959 © Izis Bidermanas
On the centenary of his birth, a tribute to one of the greatest photographers of all time. The exhibition presents a selection of photographs taken in Italy during the Second World War and the lesser-known images of the artist-reporter. His photographs are a visual record of the most important historical events of the 20th century and, simultaneously, capture in a single instant both the happy and dramatic moments of human existence.
The museum was created in 1975 within the Istituto Tecnico Industriale Tessile Tullio Buzzi, as a cultural institution aimed at conserving the memory of local industrial production and acting as material support in the study of industrial textile design.
Museo Gucci Opened in the historic Palazzo della Mercanzia, the museum offers a dynamic and interactive display on three floors, using objects, documents and pictures of the well-known fashion house founded in 1921 in Florence. piazza della Signoria open: every day 10-20 closed: 1 January, 15 August, 25 December
via Puccetti, 3, Prato open: Monday and Wednesday to Friday 10-15, Saturday 10-19, Sunday 15-19
www.guccimuseo.com
www.museodeltessuto.it
exhibition
Officina Pratese
Tessuti del Rinascimento italiano
Full calendar of activities for families on website www.museodeltessuto.it
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 collection is enhanced by post1960 production: every year, several contemporary models are given places in the Archivio Salvatore Ferragamo, from which the museum selects the materials for exhibition. piazza di Santa Trinita, 5r open: Wednesday to Monday 10-18; in August, Monday to Saturday 10-13 and 14-18 closed: 1 January, 1 May, 15 August, 25 December
24 September 2013-19 January 2014 Organised on the occasion of the exhibition Da Donatello a Lippi. Officina Pratese being staged at the Palazzo Pretorio in Prato (13 September 201313 January 2014), the Textiles Museum presents an exhibition that tells the story of the great manufacturing expansion of the Italian textile workshops of the Renaissance. The richness, technical perfection and design of velvets, damasks and lampas weaves made Italian fabrics of this period the most sought-after on the national and international luxury goods markets, authentic icons of a style that, suitably reinterpreted, has permeated industrial design over the last two centuries. The fabrics, clothes and liturgical vestments on display are presented in a play of cross-references with the images of important figurative works of the Renaissance, including those exhibited at Palazzo Pretorio, in which the most well-known types of textile can be recognised. Some fabrics and clothes, reproduced to scale by the Fondazione Lisio and inspired by Renaissance painting, enrich the analysis of the links with pictorial iconography. Particularly important are various early 20th-century interpretations of fabrics represented in absolute masterpieces of Florentine painting of the 15th century, such as Botticelli’s Primavera, Birth of Venus and Pallas and the Centaur and Ghirlandaio’s Portrait of a Florentine noblewoman from the frescoes of the Tornabuoni Chapel in Santa Maria Novella in Florence. Thanks to collaboration with the Museo Leonardiano of Vinci, the exhibition also features a fascinating analysis of the studies and projects designed by Leonardo for the spinning, twisting, weaving and finishing of silk and wool, presented in the form of 3D animations of the machines designed by Leonardo as well as historicised reproductions of Leonardo’s extraordinary codexes.
fashion museums and archives
Textiles Museum of Prato
www.museoferragamo.it
exhibition
Il calzolaio prodigioso
Fiabe e leggende di scarpe e calzolai
curated by Stefania Ricci, Sergio Risaliti and Luca Scarlini until 31 March 2014
Mimmo Paladino, Untitled, 2013. On show in the exhibition Il calzolaio prodigioso at the Museo Ferragamo
Museo Roberto Capucci Housed in Villa Bardini, the museum opened in 2007 with the aim of making Capucci’s work better known through thematic exhibitions. The rotating exhibitions use the rich archive of the Fondazione Roberto Capucci which, since 1951, includes 450 creations, 300 illustrations, 22,000 sketches, 20 notebooks, 150 audiovisual sources, 50,000 photographs and 50,000 press articles. costa San Giorgio, 2 open: Tuesday to Sunday 10-19 closed: 1 January, 25 December
www.fondazionerobertocapucci.com
exhibition
Dalle mani di Roberto Capucci: tessuti da plasmare
Fairy tales, myths and legends from most countries have often had shoes and shoemakers as their subject, from Cinderella to Puss in Boots, to The Red Shoes and The Wizard of Oz. The exhibition is an original chronicle of well-known and lesser-known fairy tales, using various art forms: painting, sculpture, video, poetry and literature, music and illustration. Salvatore Ferragamo’s magical journey is interpreted like a fairy tale by the great authors of comics and cinema, while contemporary and antique works of art, precious objects and rare books, the original manuscript of Garcia Lorca’s Zapatera prodigiosa, complete the exhibition.
until 31 December 2013 27 creations highlight Capucci’s approach to various materials, impalpable flowing forms, silhouettes crafted by the lines of repeated forms and almost sculptural rigidities. In the first section are dresses in the peplos style and cascading one-shoulder dresses in jersey and georgette, while the fabrics take on undulating forms and volumes becoming more pronounced in the Calla sculpture-dress, presented in 1956. The second section comprises small jackets and boleros; the more sculptural dimension is seen in the black and white bolero in gazaar worked into a tube effect, resembling the form of a caterpillar, presented in 1985. In the third section are creations with complex volumes, rigid drapes, waves, spirals and volutes, panier effects, scalloped hems, inlays in relief and rouches challenging the linearity of taffetas and velvets, sauvage and shantung, georgette and organza.
works on loan
The museum is contribuing with loans of works from its archive to the exhibitions Moda. Made in Italy (Hasselt, Modemuseum, until 9 February 2014) and La Rinascita. Storie dell’Italia che ce l’ha fatta (Asti, Palazzo Mazzetti, until 3 November 2014)
Workshops for children see pp. 42-43
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bardini villa and garden
he Fondazione Parchi Monumentali Bardini e Peyron was established in 1998 by the Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze in the wake of the project to revive the properties of the Bardini inheritance that had been acquired and restored. Since 2008 the Villa has not only housed the monographic museum dedicated to the artist Pietro Annigoni, but has also, and in this it surpasses the classic dimension of a ‘closed’ museum, been an exhibition centre for temporary events and scientific research, focusing particularly on the historical period between the late 19th and early 20th century. The Museo Capucci (see p. 29) and the Società Italiana di Orticoltura are also based on these premises.
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exhibitions
Il Rinascimento da Firenze a Parigi. Andata e ritorno curated by Giovanna Damiani, Marilena Tamassia and Nicolas Sainte Fare Garnot Villa Bardini 6 September-31 December 2013 The Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris, which celebrates 100 years since its foundation, has the richest collection of works of the Florentine Renaissance in France after the Louvre. The precious collection was put together by the wealthy and cultivated French couple who from 1882 sojourned in Florence every year, buying up hundreds of masterpieces of every kind from the antiquarian Bardini. Following the death of her husband in 1894, Nélie Jacquemart continued to visit Florence and make purchases until her own death in 1912, when she bequeathed to the French state the family palace and collections on the condition that they be made into a public museum. One year later, in 1913, the museum was already a reality. The exhibition, which for the first time brings back to Italy the main nucleus of the collection, can therefore be seen as a kind of double homecoming: paintings by Botticelli, Mantegna, Paolo Uccello, Luca Signorelli, Alesso Baldovinetti, sculptures by Donatello and Giambologna, small bronzes, furniture, ceramics, in all about 40 masterpieces exhibited in the same residence-atelier of the merchant who sold them.
Museo Annigoni via dei Bardi, 1r; costa San Giorgio, 2 open: Tuesday to Sunday 10-18 from November to March; 10-19 from April to October closed: Monday, 1 January, 1 May, 25 December
open: Tuesday to Sunday 10-19
Pietro Annigoni: presenza di un Artista
Bardini Garden via dei Bardi, 1r; costa San Giorgio, 2 open: every day 8.15-16.30 from November to February; 8.15-17.30 in March; 8.15-18.30 in April, May, September and October; 8.15-19.30 in June, July and August closed: 1st and last Monday of the month, 1 January, 1 May, 25 December For times and events see the website
curated by Emanuele Barletti with Arabella Cifani and Franco Monetti ECRF Exhibition Area 15 October 2013-6 January 2014
ecrf exhibition area
www.bardinipeyron.it
he exhibition area, opened on the ground floor of the historic headquarters of the Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze, represents a point of reference for Florentines, and an added asset for Florence, just a stone’s throw from the Duomo and the main sites of artistic and cultural interest scattered throughout the city’s historic centre. The venue hosts prestigious exhibitions and cultural events.
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New display at the Museo Annigoni from 15 October 2013 The museum’s collections can now be visited in new spaces with a new arrangement of the material
via Bufalini, 6
www.entecarifirenze.it
exhibition Capolavori in Valtiberina
The exhibition, in collaboration with the Fondazione Guelpa in Ivrea and with the participation of Rossella Segreto Annigoni, celebrates Annigoni on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of his death. On display are unseen works from the collection of the ECRF, the Fondazione Guelpa and other public and private collections. The first section, Pietro Annigoni between Ivrea and Florence, exhibits 22 early paintings by Annigoni, never before shown in Florence – self-portraits, portraits, landscapes and religious images. The second section, Rariora Annigoniana, shows a large number of unknown works, in order to reveal a ‘hidden’ profile of the artist. In other words, an extensive production yet to be explored. The third section, The Family, introduces a voyage through Annigoni’s family: his father Riccardo, his mother Teresa, his two wives Anna Maggini and Rossella Segreto, and his children Benedetto and Ricciarda, with portraits, photos, documents and sketches; among them are sketches for portraits of English and Danish queens and princes, and the works Tempesta (1938) and Scultore folle (1957). The fourth section, Morelli’s donation, presents for the first time about 100 works – mainly engravings – donated to the ECRF by Michela Morelli in 2009 and linked to the Simi family who had an important role in the early formation of the artist. open: Monday to Friday 9-19, Saturday and Sunday 10-13 and 15-19
Da Piero della Francesca a Burri in various museums in Valtiberina until 3 November 2013
Piero della Francesca, Rosso Fiorentino, Raffaello, Donatello, Jacopo della Quercia and Alberto Burri are among the artists featured in this initiative that aims to promote art and culture in the area between Tuscany and Umbria. www.piccoligrandimusei.it
Francesco Salviati, Portrait of a Young Lute Player, c. 1545-1550, oil on canvas. © Culturespaces - Paris, Musée Jacquemart-André, formerly Stefano Bardini Collection
opened to the public: 1861, with the unification of the Magliabechiana and Palatina libraries founders: Antonio Magliabechi (Magliabechiana) and Ferdinando III (Palatina) piazza dei Cavalleggeri, 1 open: Monday to Friday 8.15-19, Saturday 8.15-13.30
www.bncf.firenze.sbn.it
Biblioteca Riccardiana opened to the public: after 1659 origin: the collection of Riccardo Romolo Riccardi made in the 16th century via de’ Ginori, 10 open: Monday and Thursday 8-17.30, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday 8-14
www.riccardiana.firenze.sbn.it
Biblioteca Moreniana opened to the public: 1942 origin: 1870, from the collection of Domenico Moreni (1763-1835) via de’ Ginori, 10 open: Monday and Thursday 8-17.15, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday 8-14
www.provincia.fi.it/ palazzo-medici-riccardi/ biblioteca-moreniana
Biblioteca degli Uffizi opened to the public: 1998 origin: the first public library in Florence, founded by Pietro Leopoldo of Lorraine (mid-18th century) Loggiato degli Uffizi open: Tuesday 9-17, Wednesday 9-13.30, Friday 9-13
www.polomuseale.firenze.it
Biblioteca Marucelliana opened to the public: 1752 founder: Francesco Marucelli (1625-1703) via Cavour, 43-47 open: Monday to Friday 8.30-19, Saturday 8.30-13.45
www.maru.firenze.sbn.it
Biblioteca delle Oblate opened to the public: 2007, following the restoration of the complex origin: the Biblioteca Comunale Centrale (1913) via dell’Oriuolo, 26 open: Monday 14-19, Tuesday to Saturday 9-24
www.bibliotecadelleoblate.it
libraries
Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale
exhibition
Boccaccio autore e copista curated by Teresa De Robertis, Carla Maria Monti, Marco Petoletti, Giuliano Tanturli and Stefano Zamponi Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana 11 October 2013-11 January 2014 On the 7th centenary of the birth of Giovanni Boccaccio (13131375) this exhibition in the city and library housing the largest number of his most important signed works, aims to offer a complete picture of the literary production of one of the most influential and studied of all Italian authors. It draws on research carried out over the last 40 years on Boccaccio’s life, culture and library, with important new discoveries, particularly regarding his activity as a copyist and philologist – it suffices to recall here the recent discoveries of his autograph works in the Ambrosiana and Riccardiana libraries and in the British Library. The exhibition is divided into two main sections, one dedicated to Boccaccio’s literary production, the other focusing on his activity as a copyist and discoverer of texts. On display are works in the vernacular and in Latin by the author; three notebooks in which, from the time of his youth, Boccaccio collected rare and unusual materials, the fruit of his readings and cultural encounters; and the volumes hitherto discovered of his personal library, which friar Martino da Signa, who had inherited it from the writer, gave to the Florentine convent of Santo Spirito. The exhibition is completed by special sections on the Decameron, with a multimedia presentation of the original, now in Berlin, and with the reading of some novellas, and to the Teseida, with an interactive presentation of its various editions and the planned illustrations. An important catalogue gives an overview of the most recent research on Boccaccio and illustrates those autograph manuscripts it was impossible to put on display.
Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana opened to the public: 1571 by order of Grand Duke Cosimo I origin: a collection begun by Cosimo il Vecchio piazza di San Lorenzo, 9 open: Monday, Wednesday and Friday 8-14, Tuesday and Thursday 8-17.30
www.bml.firenze.sbn.it
exhibitions and events Miniatura viva
Donato Di Zio
Exhibition of codices, facsimiles and contemporary miniaturists until 5 October 2013 Biblioteca Riccardiana
Exhibition dedicated to this contemporary artist as part of the Tipi da biblioteca initiative 24 October-20 December 2013 Biblioteca Riccardiana
Bibliopride 2013
Leggere per non dimenticare
The second year of this national event celebrating libraries, with lectures, workshops, readings and a ‘library tent’ in the piazza 5 October 2013 piazza di Santa Croce and libraries and archives in the city
19th year October 2013-May 2014 Biblioteca delle Oblate
Salviamo un Codice Presentation of the commentary on the manuscript Ricc. 237, restored under the Salviamo un Codice scheme 5 October 2013 Biblioteca Riccardiana
Emozioni dall’insieme Works by Pia Parodi, Paola Crema and Paola Romano October 2013 Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale
Boccaccio autore e copista Exhibition organised for the 7th centenary of the birth of Giovanni Boccaccio 11 October 2013-11 January 2014 Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana
L’anatomia del pensiero Projection of the video L’anatomia del pensiero, by Adam Berg, on the occasion of the Florence Biennale in contemporary art 28 November 2013 Biblioteca Riccardiana, Salone Luca Giordano
La via al Principe: Niccolò Machiavelli da Firenze a San Casciano On the occasion of the 5th centenary of Il Principe the exhibition illustrates the life of Machiavelli until his exile to San Casciano and the publication of his treatise 10 December 2013-28 February 2014 Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale
Adam Berg One man show devoted to this Swedish artist January 2014 Biblioteca Riccardiana
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famous foreigners
Following our focus on the Anglo-Florentines Frederick Stibbert and Herbert Percy Horne, VisitArt presents the second series of profiles devoted to famous foreigners who have visited, lived or left significant traces in Florence. In this issue we concentrate on some great Russians and their relationship with the city.
texts by Stefania Pavan Professor of Russian Literature
The Demidoff family
The Demidoff family established a strong bond with Florence and left concrete evidence of its presence in the city: the monument to Nikolai Demidoff, in the small square of the same name near the Ponte alle Grazie, the work of Lorenzo Bartolini; Palazzo Demidoff-Amici in via dei Renai; the villa at Pratolino; the family coat-of-arms flanking the central door of Santa Maria del Fiore, in remembrance of the large sum of money which the Demidoff family contributed to the building of the façade. The enormous wealth of the Demidoff family came mainly from landed property, mines and factories in the Urals and Siberia; this explains why one of the four allegorical statues at the corners of the monument to Nikolai represents Siberia, holding Pluto in its arms with a sack of gold. Nikolai was the first member of the family to set up residence in Florence, in 1815, as Russian ambassador to the grand-ducal court. He rented Palazzo Serristori while restoring the palace in via dei Renai, which he moved into around 1822. The palace had an entrance at n. 30 via di San Niccolò, where Nikolai had a free primary school for disadvantaged children and a medical centre built in 1828. The school was financed by the Demidoff family until the middle of the 19th century and was taken over by the royal administration in 1870. The same year Nikolai had a hospital for the poor built at Bagni di Lucca, a building that still stands. Nikolai’s son Anatole completed the purchase, begun by his father, of the land on the city’s northern outskirts belonging to the monastery of San Donato in Polverosa. The monks sold the land and the entire monastery to the Demidoff family in 1825. A splendid villa was built on the site and in it Anatole ammassed his father’s many art treasures, which he himself had added to.
Many of these treasures were later sold off. In the Villa of San Donato, in 1852, Anatole founded the Società anonima per le corse dei cavalli. In actual fact, he had been thinking of a Circolo dell’Unione, but in order not to upset the Grand Duke with a possible reference to the Unification of Italy, he had opted for a different name. The following year, the institution was moved to Palazzo Corsi, at n. 7 via Tornabuoni, where it was finally called the Circolo dell’Unione in 1871. Anatole, whose first marriage was to Mathilde de Monfort, Napoleon’s niece, also provided for the purchase and restoration of the Napoleonic villa of San Martino on the island of Elba, where even today there are numerous masterpieces from the family collection. Anatole died without children. His heir was his nephew Pavel, who bought the Pratolino estate in 1872, where the original Medici villa had been demolished in 1822. The Demidoff family renovated, enlarged and adapted the building of the Paggeria, or pages’ lodgings, as a villa. In 1879 Pavel was appointed honorary citizen of Florence, together with his wife Elena Petrovna Trubetskaya. In 1885, the year of his death, the Villa of San Donato in Polverosa was sold, after the adjoining Orthodox chapel had been closed in 1879 and the furnishings donated to the Russian Orthodox church in Florence. The Demidoff family moved to the villa of Pratolino when restoration work finished. After Pavel’s death the villa passed to his wife, who in 1917 left it to her daughter Maria Demidoff Abamelek-Lazarev. Maria, just widowed, moved to Pratolino, where she died in 1955. In 1969 her heir, Prince Pavel Karageorgevich better known as Prince Paul of Yugoslavia, auctioned the villa, the furnishings and the huge art collection housed in it.
illustrations by Paolo Fiumi
Tchaikovsky left no museums, collections or tangible bequests in Florence; the only concrete trace of his presence is the plaque on the wall of Villa Bonciani, on the corner of via di San Leonardo and viale dei Colli, where the musician lived in December 1878: ‘Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky lived and composed in this villa in 1878. The boundless Russian steppe and the gentle Tuscan hills come together in his immortal melodies’. He visited Florence for the first time in May 1874, for a short visit; he returned in November 1877, for only three days, together with his brother Anatole, when he listened to street singers for the first time, and again in February 1878 with his other brother Modest. The journey was made possible by the generous financial help of Nadezhda von Meck, the wealthy Russian heiress of Karl Georg von Meck. In 1878 Nadezhda, who had herself styled ‘baroness’, resided at Villa Oppenheim on the viale dei Colli – the present-day Villa Cora – with eleven children, eight servants, two cooks and two coachmen. The composer and his brother rented a room at the hotel Città di Milano in via dei Cerretani. They visited the Uffizi, Palazzo Vecchio, the Medici Chapels and Palazzo Pitti. Tchaikovsky left Florence in early March and returned, alone, on 2 December of the same year. This time Nadezhda von Meck rented for him and his servant Alexsey, who was accompanying him, an apartment at Villa Bonciani, not far from Villa Oppenheim. Nadezhda and Tchaikovsky engaged in a strange little ritual: every day she would pass in front of his house, often in a coach and accompanied by one of her children, while he would go for a stroll toward the baroness’s house. They never walked together and only once, by some mischance, did their paths meet. Each morning she would write him a long letter and every evening he would reply; servants delivered the letters. Often they were present at the same theatre performances, but they never once exchanged words. In this, his first long visit to Florence, Tchaikovsky reviewed the orchestration of the First Suite and planned The Maid of Orleans. In late December 1878 Nadezhda left Florence and Tchaikovsky also left the city for Paris. In March 1881, during a journey from Vienna to Rome, he stopped in Florence for twenty-four hours,
famous foreigners
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky
staying at the Grand Hotel de New York on lungarno Corsini. He passed through the city again in late November, on his way from Venice to Rome, and in late March 1882, going from Naples to Vienna, he lodged at the Washington Hotel in borgo Ognissanti. In the early months of 1890 he was again in Florence for the longest and artistically most important visit, linked to the composition of The Queen of Spades. He had arrived from Germany, in search of the necessary tranquillity, specifically to write this opera. He again lodged at the Washington, living in a separate suite whose windows gave onto the Arno. He was totally absorbed by the work; its libretto, by his brother Modest, was based on a story by Alexander Pushkin. On 31 January 1890 he began the composition, and no event in Florence could tear him away from it, not even the arrival in the city on 12 March of the procession led by Buffalo Bill (Colonel William Cody): 1,300 people, 4 special trains and a collapsible amphitheatre for 10,000 spectators. He only just managed to attend the unveiling of the monument to Daniele Manin, in nearby piazza d’Ognissanti. Yet Tchaikovsky did not cut himself off entirely, despite working every day with extreme regularity. At times of leisure he would walk in the Cascine; he would also read Italian newspapers – he could read, but not speak Italian – yet he avoided the Gabinetto Letterario Vieusseux – where he could have read Russian newspapers – so as not to be distracted by other people. In March The Queen of Spades was finished, at the very time the city was changing before his eyes with the rebuilding projects of Giuseppe Poggi. He had the opportunity to listen to a street singer named Ferdinando, who sang a song, Pimpinella, which inspired one of his Six Songs Op. 38, Pimpinella. Florentine Song. In early April he left Florence for the last time and went to Rome where he completed the orchestration of The Queen of Spades, which, in a certain sense, we may consider Florentine. Some months later, in Russia, he composed a final tribute to the city: the String Sextet Op. 70, Souvenir de Florence.
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foreigners in florence
British Institute of Florence The Harold Acton Library
New York University in Florence at Villa La Pietra
Founded in 1917 to promote cultural exchange between Italy and the English-speaking world, the 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.
La Pietra is the seat of the University in Florence and houses the Acton Collection with over 7,000 works of art, and a Library with about 12,000 volumes and 16,000 photographs. The University hosts the Remarque Institute seminars, the Graduate Studies seminars, the Acton Miscellany, the Season Events and the La Pietra Policy Dialogues. The La Pietra Policy Dialogues aim to make a creative contribution to contemporary public policy debate by bringing together a wide array of actors not commonly called upon to reflect on policy questions with the ultimate goal of building a rich network across the Atlantic.
lungarno Guicciardini, 9
www.britishinstitute.it
events
Lectures This season’s Wednesday lectures include Judith Testa, author of An Art Lover’s Guide to Florence, Webs of desire and violence: power politics and sexual politics in three works of Florentine Renaissance art on 13 November 2013, and Lucy Riall, EUI, on The ghost of Italy past: history and the making of modern Italy on 11 December 2013.
The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies The centre 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. Villa I Tatti via di Vincigliata, 26
www.itatti.harvard.edu
event
Interactions between Latin and the Vernacular in Early Modern Europe conference organised by Eva Del Soldato and Andrea Rizzi 21 November 2013, Villa I Tatti, Florence; 22 November 2013, Monash University (Australia) Prato Centre
edited by Alyson Price
Dutch University Institute for Art History
Founded in 1958 to encourage cultural exchange, particularly between northern and southern Europe, the institute has an extensive and specialised library with a prestigious collection of critical texts on the history of art and culture. The main areas of specialisation are Italian art and the art of the Netherlands. The institute organises exhibitions, publications and lectures. viale Torricelli, 5
www.iuoart.org
Syracuse University in Florence As one of the oldest study abroad programmes in Italy, Syracuse’s long-standing relationship with the Florentine community enable it to offer an extensive range of courses and cultural immersions. It is housed in Villa Rossa, purchased by the University in 1963.
Villa La Pietra via Bolognese, 120
www.nyu.edu/global/lapietra
events NYU La Pietra Dialogues Autumn Events Under the banner An Era of Political SeaChange are three appointments in October. Women in War: Past and Present includes film screenings and roundtable discussion (12-13 October). Generation Jobless discusses European and American youth unemployment (6 and 13 November)
The Medici Villa, designed by Bernardo Buontalenti and demolished in 1822, was inside a large park that, with its water games, automatons and fountains, was imitated all over Europe. The existing Villa Demidoff was adapted from the paggeria while the transformation of the garden into an English park was carried out by Joseph Fritsch in the Lorraine period. to see: the park with its centuries-old trees; the Colossus of the Apennines and the Mugnone grotto (Giambologna), the Cupid grotto (Buontalenti, 1577), the Casino di Montili (Cambray Digny, c. 1820) and the chapel on a hexagonal plan (Buontalenti, 1580). via Fiorentina, 282 - Loc. Pratolino, Comune di Vaglia open: from April to October. In April and October, Sunday and holidays 10-17; in May and September, Saturday, Sunday and holidays 10-18; from June to August, Saturday, Sunday and holidays 10-19. The opening of the park is subject to weather conditions. Groups of residents and visitors can request to see the central area of the park on days when the park is generally closed: parcpra@provincia.fi.it 055 409427
www.provincia.fi.it/pratolino
Villa medicea di Castello
Georgetown University In 1979, Margaret Rockefeller Strong Cuevas, granddaughter of John D. Rockefeller, donated her father’s estate, Villa Le Balze, to Georgetown University. Her aim was that Le Balze would be a place of learning in honour of her father, himself a philosopher, writer, and educator. Georgetown University now offers students the opportunity to study in Florence, and organises conferences and publications. Villa Le Balze via Vecchia Fiesolana, 26
www11.georgetown.edu
events Profiles in Leadership from Caesar to Modern Times Book presentation, Prof. Emilio Iodice (Vice President Loyola University Chicago) 8 October at 17.30 Machiavelli and International Politics lecture, Prof. Marco Cesa (Università di Bologna, Johns Hopkins University) 7 November at 17.30
European University Institute The 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, economics and the humanities in a European perspective. Lectures and seminars are organised with high profile figures on the international scene. The EUI carries out its work in various places near the city. Badia Fiesolana via dei Roccettini, 9, San Domenico di Fiesole
The villa is one of the oldest Medici family suburban residences, altered, with its garden, in the 16th century, under the supervision of Tribolo, Vasari and Buontalenti. to see: the terraced garden, considered by Vasari to be one of the most magnificent in Europe, is well worth the visit, as are Ammannati’s Fountain of Hercules and Antaeus and the Grotta degli Animali. via di Castello, 47 - Loc. Castello, Firenze open: from November to February 8.15-16.30, in March 8.15-17.30, in April, May, September, October 8.15-18.30, from June to August 8.15-19.30 closed: 2nd and 3rd Monday of the month, 1 January, 1 May, 25 December
www.polomuseale.firenze.it/musei/ villacastello
Villa medicea della Petraia The building came into the possession of Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici in the second half of the 16th century and was modified by Giulio Parigi in the 17th century. to see: the interior decoration and 19th-century furnishings and interesting decoration; the ballroom with frescoes by Volterrano (17th century); the formal garden planned by Niccolò Tribolo and the fountain with Giambologna’s Fiorenza, transferred from the Villa di Castello. via della Petraia, 40 - Loc. Castello, Firenze open: every day, from November to February 8.15-16.30, in March 8.15-17.30, in April, May, September, October 8.15-18.30, from June to August 8.15-19.30 closed: 2nd and 3rd Monday of the month, 1 January, 1 May, 25 December
www.polomuseale.firenze.it/musei/petraia
www.eui.eu
Villa medicea di Cerreto Guidi
www.syr.fi.it
Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz
French Institute in Florence
Founded in 1897, and part of the Max-PlanckGesellschaft since 2002, this is one of the oldest research institutions dedicated to the history of art and architecture in Italy. One of its principle aims is the education of scholars of an international level. The institute’s resources include the library with over 300,000 volumes, 940 ongoing journal subscriptions, and one of the most wide-ranging photographic libraries on Italian art, at the disposal of researchers from all over the world.
The villa was built in 1556 as a hunting residence and garrison for the area, to a plan attributed to Bernardo Buontalenti. to see: furniture and portraits of members of the Medici family (16th and 17th century); the Historic Museum of Hunting and the Countryside.
piazza Savonarola, 15
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Parco mediceo di Pratolino Villa Demidoff
The French Institute, 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 d’Ognissanti, 2
www.france-italia.it
via Giuseppe Giusti, 44
www.khi.fi.it
via dei Ponti Medicei, 7, Cerreto Guidi open: every day 8.15-19 closed: 2nd and 3rd Monday of the month, 1 January, 1 May, 25 December
www.polomuseale.firenze.it/musei/ cerretoguidi
Per il Gran Principe Ferdinando
Nature morte, paesi, bambocciate e caramogi dalle collezioni medicee curated by Maria Matilde Simari until 5 November 2013 300 years after the death of the Grand Prince (1663-1713), the 14 rooms of the Museo della Natura Morta, set up in one of the favourite residences of the first-born son of Grand Duke Cosimo III, house an exhibition displaying works belonging with certainty to his collections and end with a room dedicated to two particular aspects of his taste as a collector. This last room exhibits a selection of small works and genre paintings, gathering together works that are usually kept in the deposits of Florentine galleries and other institutes: country views are accompanied by scenes of farce and buffoonery – grotesque, playful paintings animated by dwarves and pygmies – which reflect Ferdinando’s passion for jestful sonnets and burlesques, comedians and actors, as well as his interest in painters of genres that were outside mainstream figure painting, like the flower painters, the ‘vedutisti’, the Dutch ‘petits maîtres’, the ‘bamboccianti’ and the caricaturists. Among the works on display is a previously unattributed painting by Bartolomeo Ligozzi, whose date and signature have both been brought to light. The exhibition concludes with some manuscripts and printed books that recall Ferdinando’s eclectic personality and affable ways. open: following the Still Life Museum opening hours (last tour at 17)
medici villas
exhibition
Villa medicea di Poggio a Caiano The villa was built to a plan by Giuliano da Sangallo and reflects the humanist trends in architecture inspired by classical antiquity (1485-1492); the building was completed in the first half of the 16th century under Giovanni, then Pope Leo X. to see: frescoes by Andrea del Sarto, Pontormo, Franciabigio and Alessandro Allori; the Still Life Museum
piazza Medici, 14, Poggio a Caiano open: every day, from November to February 8.15-16.30, in March and October 8.15-17.30 (official summer time 18.30), in April, May, September 8.15-18.30, from June to August 8.15-19.30; Stll Life Museum Reservation required 055 877012 Accompanied visits (not guided), every hour, beginning at 9 (excluding lunchtime between 13 and 14) closed: 2nd and 3rd Monday of the month, 1 January, 1 May, 25 December
www.polomuseale.firenze.it/ musei/poggiocaiano
Medici Villas World Heritage In June 2013 twelve Medici Villas and two gardens became part of the Unesco World Heritage List
Faustino Bocchi, Il gatto mammone
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walks in the city the walls and gates of florence
The city’s last defensive walls, built between the late 13th and early 14th century, formed a perimeter almost nine kilometres long, with a series of main gates, posterns and guard towers. In the following centuries, particularly at the time of the siege of Florence in 1529-1530, the medieval walls were subjected to modifications aimed at strengthening the city’s defences, like the construction of ramparts or the lowering and fortifying of towers and gates. Of the original walls there remain today, to the south of the river, short stretches untouched by the works directed by Giuseppe Poggi for Florence as the capital city of unified Italy. Poggi’s works instead affected the entire perimeter north of the river, recognisable in the line of the ring-road and marked by a series of gates and towers: some isolated, monumental presences, others discreet elements absorbed by the urban fabric, surviving fragments of a complex defence system. 1 Porticciola della Vagaloggia stood near present-day lungarno Amerigo Vespucci, not far from the Pescaia di Santa Rosa, and was called the Postierla delle Mulina because of the presence in this area of milling structures.
4
2 Torre della Serpe was a guard tower that may have been called Serpe after the nickname of a famous watchman. It was situated near the so-called Porticciola d’Arno that was destroyed during the building of the ring-road. The presence of a tower on this spot was because here the wall formed a right angle, proceeding along the river as far as piazza d’Ognissanti to be in line with the Torrino di Santa Rosa on the other side of the Arno.
5
3 2
viale Fratelli Rosselli
3 Porta al Prato gets its name from a spacious green area just inside the walls. Its construction was begun at the end of the 13th century. Reduced in height, the gate was crowned by a gun emplacement and covered by a roof to shelter the artillery. At the same time Michele di Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio frescoed the lunette with a Virgin and Child with two Saints. On the inner façade a stone plaque of 1311 refers to the measurements of the walls, the ditch and the roads that ran along the perimeter.
1 20
piazzale della Porta al Prato
4 Porta a Faenza
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formed part of the wall built between the late 13th and early 14th century. The gate was one of the main entrances to the city for those arriving from the north-west, until it was incorporated into the Fortezza da Basso in the 16th century. The top of the structure is still visible behind the cannon emplacement of the fortress.
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Fortezza da Basso, viale Filippo Strozzi
5 Postierla di Gualfonda
was also known as the Postierla di Polverosa because of the monastery of San Donato in Polverosa, situated a mile away. The name Gualfonda comes instead from the road, Valfonda, that led to the tower.
6 Porta a San Gallo
was founded in 1284, a date recorded on the outer façade, together with the name of the Captain of the People, Rolandino da Canossa, while the plaque set up in 1708 dates from the visit of the Danish king Frederick IV. The Porta a San Gallo – so called because of the nearby monastery, later destroyed – is the only gate to retain its original corbels, each supporting a lion, the symbol of the city: one alludes to the benevolent welcoming of friends, the other is represented mauling a bull as a warning to enemies. At the top of the gate tower, reduced in height and roofed, is a flagstaff with the Medici coat-of-arms, while in the lunette is a Virgin and Child among Saints by Michele di Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio. piazza della Libertà
7 Postierla de’ Servi
has disappeared without trace, the only visible reminder being the street of via Gino Capponi, which led from the postern to Santissima Annunziata. Before the building of the last defence wall, the monastery was reached by taking the so-called via dei Servi and going beyond the no longer existing Porta di Balla.
8 Porta a Pinti
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was also called Porta Fiesolana because the road to Fiesole started here. It later took its name from borgo Pinti. Like the gates of San Giorgio and San Miniato, it was closed every evening ‘all’Ave Maria’ – at 5 in winter and at 8 in summer. It was decorated by a fresco of the Virgin and Child by Andrea del Sarto, of which numerous drawings and replicas have survived.
17
9 Porta alla Croce was once a 35-metre high tower at the end of borgo La Croce, which in 1529 Antonio da Sangallo lowered and equipped with embrasures. The inner lunette contains a Virgin between Saints John the Baptist and Ambrose by Michele di Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio. John the Baptist is the patron saint of the city, while the presence of Saint Ambrose is explained by the nearby church of the same name. On the side of the gate a marble plaque, placed above a small fountain, commemorates 530 Florentines who died during the First World War. piazza Beccaria
10 Postierla Guelfa was situated at the end of via Ghibellina and provided access to a large tower.
11 Porta alla Giustizia was the eastern gate nearest to the river, situated in present-day piazza Piave. Its name and the name of the street leading to it – via dei Malcontenti – alluded to the prisoners awaiting death at the gallows outside the walls, which were later moved beyond Porta alla Croce.
14 Porta San Miniato
walks in the city the walls and gates of florence
Demolished walls
was opened in the walls to allow direct access to the hill of San Miniato. The walls, built in pietraforte, on the inner side have decorative little brick arches and a stretch of the steps that led up to the ‘camminamento di ronda’. On the outer side the gate is flanked by two pairs of coats-of-arms: the lily and the cross of the Florentine people are visible on those that are better preserved.
Existing stretches of wall Demolished gates and posterns
between piazzetta di San Miniato and via del Monte alle Croci
6
15 Baluardo di San Giorgio
designed in 1529 by Michelangelo, the bastion and a ditch dug along the walls flanking via di Belvedere to defend the city from the imminent siege of the imperial army. Also called the Baluardo di Ginevra because of the presence of the spring of the same name, the bastion was built in beaten earth with wooden palisades; cannons were set up in emplacements, and a cistern collected water used for the cooling of the artillery. Later Cosimo I de’ Medici entrusted to Giuliano di Baccio d’Agnolo the construction of stone ramparts, today the centre and shooting ground of the ‘balestrieri’, or crossbowmen, of the ‘Calcio Storico Fiorentino’.
7
via di Belvedere
8
16 Porta San Giorgio
stripped of its tower, the gate was covered by a gabled roof in the 16th century. On the outer side, in the lunette, is a stone panel attributed to Andrea Pisano representing Saint George on his horse slaying the dragon. On the inner side, facing the street of costa di San Giorgio which slopes down toward the city, is a fresco attributed to Bernardo Daddi with the Enthroned Virgin and Child between Saints George and Leonard. between via di Belvedere and costa di San Giorgio
17 Porta Romana 9
10 12 11 14
16
was built in 1328, to designs by Jacopo Orcagna, and was originally named after the church of San Pier Gattolini. Some side entrances were opened in the last century to facilitate traffic. Leo X and Charles V made their solemn entrance into the city through this gate, in 1515 and 1536, as recorded in inscriptions on the outer façade. The gate, which on the outside has a marble lily by Giovanni Pisano (1331), was embellished with polychrome sculptures, of which there remain the Virgin and Child with Saints Peter and Paul, today at the Bargello, while on the inner side is the Virgin Protectress of Florence with the Child, and Saints John the Baptist, Zenobius, Peter and Nicholas of Tolentino. between piazzale della Porta Romana and piazza della Calza
18 Porta di Camaldoli
13
also known as the Porta di Volterrana, is now walled up. The structure of the tower survives, where the arch of the old gate can still be seen. on the corner of viale Ludovico Ariosto and piazza Torquato Tasso
15 illustrations by Silvia Cheli
12 Torre della Zecca Vecchia was a 25-metre high tower that marked the end of the defense wall in the east of the city north of the Arno. Built between 1320 and 1324, it took its name from the ‘Zecca’, where the florins of the Florentine Republic were minted. A marble plaque bears a verse from Dante: ‘There stretches through the midst of Tuscany, a brooklet, whose well-head springs up in Falterona; with his race not satisfied, when he some hundred miles hath measured’. Below the tower a series of vaulted underground passageways is linked to the old sewer system. piazza Piave
13 Porta San Niccolò is the only gate tower retaining its original height. On its inner façade it has three superimposed arches provided with stairs which, in the event of assault, allowed rapid access to the battlemented gallery at the top. Above the entrance arch is a lunette by Bernardo Daddi with the Enthroned Virgin and Child between Saints John the Baptist and Nicholas, flanked by musician angels. The outer façade is decorated with two corbels, rebuilt in 1934 on the model of the Porta a San Gallo. On the south side are some doors and two flights of steps built by Poggi to access the tower; the door above and left is the only original one and formed the entrance to the ‘camminamento di ronda’. piazza Giuseppe Poggi
19 Porta San Frediano
was built in 1332 to designs by Andrea Pisano, who modified Arnolfo’s original project. The great oak doors have been preserved, reinforced with nails and restored at the end of the 20th century. Reduced in height and covered, the gate was adorned with sculptures that have since been lost. Originally it took its name from the Strada Maestra Pisana, the old main road to Pisa and Livorno, used by Charles VIII when he entered Florence through this gate in 1494. between via Pisana and borgo San Frediano
20 Torrino di Verzaia and Torrino di Santa Rosa
the last stretch of walls in the Oltrarno enclosing the city to the west includes the Torrino di Verzaia, with surviving battlements, and terminates near the banks of the Arno with a tower named after Santa Rosa, because of the presence of a small oratory, in the 19th century embellished with a tabernacle in the neo-Gothic style. The two openings in the wall near the last tower date from the 20th century. on the corner of via delle Mura di Santa Rosa and lungarno Soderini
37
architecture walks
A previous issue gave an overview of the urbanistic implications of the plan of expansion for Florence as capital of the new state of Italy. We now turn to some specific architectural projects where the plan was carried out before the transfer of the capital to Rome in 1871, when a sudden withdrawal of economic resources limited its overall completion.
The dream of the capital: forms and models for Florence after the Unification of Italy
The extraordinary volume of work resulting from the election of Florence as capital city (1864) is often referred to hastily as the cause for the demolition of the medieval walls, almost as if that demolition had left a void rather than mark the first step of an important project of renewal. A judgement that is all the more superficial if, while acknowledging its limits, we are unable to see it in the context of that unique and enthusiastic climate in which it was born, for in the eyes of contemporaries it was the dream of an exemplary modern city for the newborn Kingdom of Italy. Along the circuit of the old walls we see building projects that Giuseppe Poggi, who masterminded the plan, qualified with a new style for Florence, a style inspired by the magniloquent architecture of the Renaissance at its height, that which Bramante and Raphael had imposed on Rome in the first decades of the 16th century and which Peruzzi, Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, Jacopo Sansovino, Michele Sanmicheli and Palladio had later developed and introduced in other Italian cities.
38
by Emilia Daniele
Emilia Daniele is an architect, Research Fellow in the History of Architecture and Urban Studies and professor at the FacoltĂ di Ingegneria Civile-Architettura at Pisa University.
architecture walks
A grandiose, innovative ‘maniera unitaria’, certainly a courageous choice in that chauvinistic city of Florence still characterised by the severe expressions of Tuscan Restoration classicism (much loved by the Lorraine family and championed by Pasquale Poccianti), typified by traditionally sober and impassive exteriors in stone and plasterwork (‘essential’ classicism exemplified by Palazzo Poniatowsky at Porta al Prato (1), attributable to Poggi’s early production, 1842). This is why in the oval piazza Beccaria (2) the façades of the new buildings echo the features of the Roman buildings of Bramante and Raphael (a heavily rusticated lower storey with powerful radiating quoins above the lintels of doors and windows and upper storeys framed by a giant order of half-columns, a type of building we also find in piazza Poggi), combined moreover with a Corinthian order of Palladian origin and with a crowning element of balusters at roof level reminiscent of Sanmicheli or Sansovino, or even Palladio himself. And yet the façade has a distinctly 19th-century character, possibly due to the working of the pietra serena, brought to such a polished finish as to resemble cast iron, or the perfect incision of the plaster finish of the upper storeys, masquerading as an impeccably laid ashlar facing, that is, with the vertical joints perfectly aligned at each alternate course. A robust Doric order with arches characterises instead the continuous porticoes that at ground level lighten the massive blocks of piazza della Libertà (3) (a town-planning theme, that of porticoes, popular in the 19th century, and one through which Florence attempted a ‘de-provincialisation’). If instead, with the twin buildings framing the new entrance to the Giardino della Gherardesca (4) (viale Matteotti), we get a taste of the agreeable neo-Renaissance classicism that was hoped for residential buldings along the entire green belt of the avenues, the buildings of piazza Poggi (5) were boldly faced with a rather unusual ‘opera rustica’, inspired less by capricious Tuscan mannerism and once again more by 16th-century Rome and Venice. It was Poggi himself who justified the choice of the ‘opera rustica’, ‘for those buildings needed to make a favourable impression in front of the flights of steps (6) leading to piazzale Michelangelo’. In actual fact the façades of the buildings and the facing of the first two levels of the monumental stairways closely match the rustication that also faces fountains and balusters set against the old Torre di San Niccolò (7) (which Poggi
photo Emilia Daniele
39
architecture walks
turned into an ‘obelisk’ of the entire composition, restoring access to it by adding ‘a double-ramp flight of steps in the 13th-century style’). The ramps lose their definition progressively as we climb to the piazzale, until finally they merge in with the vegetation along shady paths that wind their way around wet grottos full of calcareous formations and rivulets of water. An enjoyable public walk constructed with skilful use of hydraulic engineering, channelling here the waters from the Fosso di Gamberaia, which were later increased, to make the supply permanent, by those of the new reservoir of Carraia (8) (this too designed by Poggi and concealed in the suggestive natural environment of the ‘Erta canina’ as a grotto enclosed by a grassy double-ramp flight of steps). At the top of this not undemanding though very pleasant climb is the impressive open area of the piazzale, a panoramic terrace overlooking the city and a place where Michelangelo was revered. The Loggia overlooking the square was in fact created as a museum to house the casts of Michelangelo’s works (as well as his portrait in marble executed by Giovanni Dupré, among the most highly esteemed sculptors in Florence at the time), although it was soon after ‘relegated’ to the status of café-restaurant, partly because Michelangelo’s works were moved to the Accademia. In the middle of the square a bronze copy of the David still stands, a gift of the new government in Florence. Poggi was responsible for its monumental base (9), which is embellished with copies of the four allegorical figures from the tomb monuments of the Medici Chapels, Dawn, Day, Dusk and Night (specially cast by Clemente Papi, a sculptor known as the Cellini of the 19th century) and with inscriptions by Cesare Guasti celebrating the fourth centenary of Michelangelo’s birth. The Loggia Michelangelo (10) can be seen as an exercise in Palladianism, clearly reproposing the so-called Serlian arch from the portico of the Basilica of Vicenza. Equally distant from the Tuscan classicism of the first half of the 19th century, both materially and morphologically, is the white flight of steps in travertine leading up to San Miniato (11), reminiscent, if anything, of Roman models, even from antiquity. The entire complex of viale dei Colli, particularly the monumental sites of the piazzale and the Rampe, features some extremely well laid-out and pleasing expressions of urban decor (though it is difficult to say whether these are directly attributable to Poggi). To preserve their integrity, and guarantee the safety of the paths, little buildings were erected for security purposes (12), these too designed with the same care: stone benches with mosaic seats, alleys supported by little walls that give the walks an aura of relaxed naturalism, wrought-iron fixtures (13) that seem to usher in the refinements of art nouveau, and finally, the cast-iron balustrade of the piazzale (14), a compact succession of vertical elements shaped in the form of Doric columns, that same austere masculine order that inspired and ‘structured’ the entire system of the Rampe, from the buildings of piazza Poggi to the Loggia. The building projects in the expanding districts of the capital were not all by Poggi. The construction of the monumental Royal Stables at Porta Romana, for example (today’s Istituto d’Arte), built to designs by Fabio Nuti following a direct request from the Savoy family, with the adjoining building of the Pagliere (15), proceeded independently of work on the adjacent arm of the viale dei Colli, and in fact actually conditioned its course. Poggi himself, burdened by the work of urban expansion, passed on to one of his pupils, Pietro Comparini, the project of Villa Oppenheim (today’s Villa Cora) on viale Machiavelli at Bobolino, the residence whose worldly and cultural life would take on particular importance in Florence at the end of the century. Other assistants involved in the drafting of the plans and in coordinating the various worksites included Giacomo Roster (particularly for the buildings of piazza Beccaria, those destroyed in the area of piazzale Galileo and the picturesque chalets at Bobolino), Emilio de Fabris (responsible for various residential blocks along the ‘viali’) and many other architects who quickly became leading figures on Florence’s architectural scene, revealing how the capital’s immense worksite had become an extraordinary generator of growth and exchange, a feverish occasion for experimenting new styles.
40
All the quotations are taken from G. Poggi, Sui lavori per l’ingrandimento di Firenze (1864-1877), Florence 1882.
1. Palazzo Poniatowsky at Porta al Prato
2. Buildings of piazza Beccaria
6. Le Rampe
7. Restoration of Porta San Niccolò
With its ‘simple Tuscan-style’ façade – this is how Florentine architects of the Restoration consciously expressed themselves – eschewing the superfluous exuberance of the architectural order, Palazzo Poniatowsky is a representative example of Poggi’s early style, directly linked to the Tuscan School deriving from Pasquale Poccianti.
A combination of town planning and landscape design to condolidate the unstable slopes of the San Miniato hill, powerful substructions buttressing the magnificent belvedere of piazzale Michelangelo. A panoramic driveway with three hairpin bends winds its way down through woods, with ponds and grottos, culminating in a double flight of steps at the height of the old walls decorated with elaborate rustic ornamentation.
11. Steps to San Miniato
Travertine, the material chosen to build the ‘grand double flight of steps leading up to the Basilica of San Miniato’ and face the walls flanking it, was decidedly un-Florentine. Poggi justified this striking alternative to the local pietra serena and pietraforte stone, asserting that the colour of the stone would ‘diverge as little as possible from the marble façade of the church’.
Inspired by the magniloquent Roman and Venetian 16th century, the convex shape of the façades defines the oval shape of the square, with a sumptuous, evenly arranged rustication on the ground floor, a giant Corinthian order (sometimes paired at the corners) above, and an airy balustrade at the top. A rather unusual expression of classicism for Florence.
Poggi opposed the idea of demolishing the medieval tower of Porta San Niccolò, worthy ‘for its style’, for being ‘less damaged by time and by men’, and as a glorious monument to past history. He not only spared the tower, but exalted it, making it the centrepiece, ‘almost an obelisk’, of the entire composition of Le Rampe.
12. Guard posts for public safety
The standardised guard posts houses’ that appear here and there along the bends of the viale dei Colli to guarantee the safety of the pathways and the prevention of abuse and vandalism, are sober in style, though not without a touch of elegance. They are also decorative elements, and as such were designed with care and aesthetic criteria, as is clear from Poggi’s original drawings.
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3. Buildings of piazza della Libertà
The Doric loggias, which on the ground floor perforate the imposing building structures of piazza della Libertà, aspire to form a continuous portico. The Doric order was a severe style, allusive to the male force, which is recalled in the triglyphs of the trabeation that runs above the arches and is wholly appropriate for buildings that were used to house the efficient offices of the new organs of State.
4. The Giardino della Gherardesca entrance and side buildings
While the gate is in the 18thcentury style, almost an invitation to the bucolic atmosphere of the garden within, the twin ‘palazzine’ display an impeccable neoRenaissance classicism, in a minor ‘tone’ compared to the monumental style of the interventions in the main squares, an elegant model for the residential buildings that were supposed to have lined the circuit of the ring-road.
5. Buildings of piazza Poggi
As in piazza Beccaria, we see the return of classical rustication, the giant order, and straight arches with wedge-shaped blocks, now characterised by the accentuated harshness of a Doric order surrounded by rough stonework, in an osmotic dialogue with the naturalness of the adjacent ‘Rampe’. In 1911 this splendid project at the foot of piazzale Michelangelo was named after the architect who designed it.
Corpus of Sienese Paintings in Hungary 1420-1510 Dóra Sallay 2014
Atlante delle Tebaidi e dei temi figurativi
ATLANTE DELLE TEBAIDI E DEI TEMI FIGURATIVI
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8. Double-ramp staircase of the Giardino di Carraia
A fascinating, peaceful backdrop to the park complex of San Niccolò, a delightful playground for the children of the neighbourhood, the double-ramp staircase designed by Poggi, with its sinuous curves, climbs over the ‘grotto’ concealing the waterworks used to strengthen the jets of the fountains of Le Rampe. Noteworthy are the rustic architectural details.
9. Base for the statue of David
Believing that the bronze copy of the David would be almost dwarfed by the vastness of piazzale Michelangelo, Poggi proposed raising the statue on a base, also suggesting it was decorated by the four Allegories of the Medici tombs, they too, like the David, made by Clemente Papi. A partial consolation for the decision not to turn the nearby Loggia into a museum dedicated to Michelangelo.
10. Loggia Michelangelo
With its clear pietra serena profiles and impeccable Doric features, the Loggia is the culmination of Poggi’s entire ring-road project. Although named after the ‘great Buonarroti’, the architectural style is not the ‘tormented’ one of Michelangelo, but expresses rather a calm classicism, a mixture of Palladio and Vignola, in a severe, ‘frozen’ 19th-century version.
Bartolomeo della Gatta pittore e miniatore tra Arezzo, Roma e Urbino
BARTOLOMEO DELLA GATTA
pittore e miniatore tra Arezzo, Roma e Urbino
Cecilia Martelli
November 2013
Prospettiva
Rivista di storia dellʼarte antica e moderna
Fondata nel 1975 da Mauro Cristofani e Giovanni Previtali
next issue: nos. 147-148 December 2013
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autumn-winter 2013-2014
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Cecilia Martelli
Rivista dellʼOpificio delle Pietre Dure e Laboratori di Restauro di Firenze
next issue: no. 25 March 2014
RIVISTA DI STORIA DELLA 13. Decorative elements along viale dei Colli
The Doric order is present along the entire course of the Rampe. It appears on the rusticated façades of the buildings in piazza Poggi, in the small pilasters around the basin of the Torre San Niccolò, and can be seen again in the finally ‘free’ Doric order of the Loggia Michelangelo. But note also the long series of small Doric columns forming the balustrade around the belvedere of piazzale Michelangelo.
15. ʻPagliereʼ of the Royal Stables
The moving of the Italian capital from Turin to Florence made necessary the construction of a new complex of stables, since those in piazza San Marco were deemed to be insufficient. In addition to the main building, attributed to Fabio Nuti, the ‘Pagliere’ (Barberis), the garden and finally the more complex entrance gate (V. Romanelli, A. Rambaldi, 1873) were built.
next issue: no. 17 November 2013
MITTEILUNGEN DES KUNSTHISTORISCHEN INSTITUTES IN FLORENZ next issue: LV. Band 2013 Heft 2 October 2013
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The viale dei Colli was conceived as an authentic gardenneighbourhood, harmoniously winding its way through public areas and private properties, carefully designed down to the last detail, from the layout of the green areas to the insertion of low iron fences around the ponds and the stone-mosaic seats of the benches that offer rest along the pathways. Poggi developed a series of norms regulating correct maintenance and decorum along the viale.
14. Balustrade of piazzale Michelangelo
MINIATURA
Società Internazionale di Studi di Storia della Miniatura
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october
november
december
Families at Palazzo Strozzi
Detective dell’Arte
Mathematical Sundays
A tutta scienza
Musei da favola
Palazzo Strozzi The Storyteller’s Tale 1 October at 17.30-18.30 Look, Discover, Create... 100 ways of saying ‘piazza’ 6 October at 15.30-16.30 Artist Explorers every Sunday at 10.30-12.30
Museo Casa Siviero 2 November
Museo Casa Siviero 5 October
A tutta scienza
Galileo Museum Impara l’inglese con la scienza 5 October at 15 Tutti in bicicletta! 6, 13, 20, 26 and 27 October at 15 Sulla nave di Amerigo Vespucci! 12 October at 15 La chimica di Pietro Leopoldo (ages 8 and up) 19 October at 15
I giorni della preistoria
Nel mondo del collezionista Horne Museum 6 October at 10.30-12
Artigiani in famiglia Horne Museum Un, due, tre... libro! 26 October at 10.30
Family Size
CCC Strozzina 12, 19 and 26 October at 15
Musei da favola
Orsanmichele and Museo Ferragamo Angels, Saints and Tradesmen (city walk and workshop) 12 October at 10.30 Boboli Gardens Una passeggiata incantata 13 October at 10 and 15 the Uffizi I quadri raccontano una storia 20 October at 10.30 Palazzo Pitti La casa del Principe 27 October at 10 and 11.30
Mathematical Sundays Museum of Mathematics 13 October at 16
Palazzo Strozzi Look, Discover, Create... A grand family for a grand home 1 December at 15.30-16.30 The Storyteller’s Tale 3 December at 17.30-18.30 Christmas at Palazzo Strozzi 8 December at 15-18 Artist Explorers every Sunday at 10.30-12.30
Museum of Mathematics 3 November at 16
Families at Palazzo Strozzi
Palazzo Strozzi Look, Discover, Create... The stone giant 3 November at 15.30-16.30 The Storyteller’s Tale 5 November at 17.30-18.30 Artist Explorers every Sunday at 10.30-12.30
Famiglie al museo
the Accademia Arte civica a Firenze: il bello e l’utile per il buon governo 9 and 16 November at 10.30 Gallery of Modern Art Arte come impressione 10 and 23 November at 10 and 11.30
Take Part in Art the Oblate 9 November at 10.30
A tutta scienza
Galileo Museum Microscopiche scoperte! 1, 15 and 29 December at 15 Il cannocchiale racconta 7 December at 15 Gli strumenti di Galileo 8 and 22 December at 15 “C’era una volta”... al Museo Galileo: il racconto dei burattini (ages 5 to 7) 14 December at 15 Sperimentiamo il Museo! 21 December at 15 Impara l’inglese con la scienza 28 December at 15
Detective dell’Arte Museo Casa Siviero 7 December
Family Size
CCC Strozzina 2, 9, 16, 23 and 30 November at 15
Nel mondo del collezionista Horne Museum 10 November at 10.30-12
Family Size
CCC Strozzina 7, 14, 21 and 28 December at 15
Famiglie al museo
Gallery of Modern Art Arte come impressione 14 December at 10 and 11.30 the Uffizi Natale agli Uffizi 15 December at 15 and 16.30 21 December at 10 and 11.30
Artigiani in famiglia
Horne Museum C’era una volta un pezzo di legno 23 November at 10.30
Musei da favola
the Uffizi I quadri raccontano una storia 17 November at 10.30 Palazzo Pitti La casa del Principe 24 November at 10 and 11.30 Orsanmichele and Museo Ferragamo Storie di angeli, santi e artigiani (passeggiata in città e laboratorio) 30 November at 10.30
Nel mondo del collezionista Horne Museum 15 December at 10.30-12
Artigiani in famiglia Horne Museum Profumi e belletti 21 December at 10.30
A tutta scienza!
at the Galileo Museum interactive visits and workshops, for families with children aged 5 and up, using Galileo’s instruments and inventions
Famiglie al museo
Sezione Didattica del Polo Museale guided visits to discover art for children aged 7 to 14 and accompanying adults
42
Families at Palazzo Strozzi
Mathematical Sundays
the Accademia Arte civica a Firenze: il bello e l’utile per il buon governo 5 October at 10.30 Silver Museum Dalla Savana a Corte: i segreti dell’antica tecnica della lavorazione dell’avorio 6 October at 10.30 26 October at 10 and 11.30 the Accademia, Department of Musical Instruments Armonie a corte: i musici e il Gran Principe 19 October at 10.30 Florentine Museum of Prehistory Laboratorio di ceramica 5 October at 9.30-12.30 Laboratorio di ornamenti 12 October at 9.30-12.30 Laboratorio di pitture 19 October at 9.30-12.30 Laboratorio di tessiture 26 October at 9.30-12.30
the Uffizi I quadri raccontano una storia 1 December at 10.30 Orsanmichele and Museo Ferragamo Storie di angeli, santi e artigiani (passeggiata in città e laboratorio) 7 December at 10.30 Palazzo Pitti The Prince’s home 29 December at 10.30
Galileo Museum Alla scoperta dell’universo dantesco (ages 8 and up) 2 November at 15 Tutti in bicicletta! 3, 10, 16 and 17 November at 15 Sulla nave di Amerigo Vespucci! 9 November at 15 Il cannocchiale racconta 23 November at 15 Gli strumenti di Galileo 24 November at 15 Sperimentiamo il Museo! 30 November at 15
Detective dell’Arte
Famiglie al museo
Museum of Mathematics 1 December at 15.30
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I giorni della preistoria at the Museum of Prehistory
guided visits and workshops to find out about the techniques used in prehistory for painting, drawing, weaving, ceramics and fabric making. For children aged 4 and up booking required 055 295159 didattica@museofiorentinopreistoria.it
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february
Famiglie al museo
the Uffizi Natale agli Uffizi 4 January at 15 and 16.30 the Accademia, Department of Musical Instruments Armonie a corte: i musici e il Gran Principe 11 January at 10 Palazzo Pitti Bambini a Corte! Vita quotidiana dei piccoli di tre dinastie 25 January at 10 and 11.30
A tutta scienza
Galileo Museum Sulla nave di Amerigo Vespucci! 4 January at 15 Gli strumenti di Galileo 5 and 19 January at 15 “C’era una volta”... al Museo Galileo: il racconto dei burattini (ages 5 to 7) 11 January at 15 Microscopiche scoperte! 12 and 26 January at 15 Il cannocchiale racconta 18 January at 15 Impara l’inglese con la scienza 25 January at 15
Families at Palazzo Strozzi Palazzo Strozzi Look, Discover, Create... A grand family for a grand home 5 January at 17.30-18.30 The Storyteller’s Tale 7 January at 17.30-18.30 Artist Explorers 5 and 12 January at 10.30-12.30
Take Part in Art the Oblate 11 January at 10.30
Family Size
CCC Strozzina 4, 11 and 18 January at 15
Musei da favola
Orsanmichele and Museo Ferragamo Storie di angeli, santi e artigiani (passeggiata in città e laboratorio) 11 January at 10.30 Galleria degli Uffizi I quadri raccontano una storia 12 January at 10.30 Palazzo Pitti La casa del Principe 19 January at 10 and 11.30
Mathematical Sundays Museum of Mathematics 12 January at 16
Artigiani in famiglia Horne Museum Ori e colori 18 January at 10.30
Detective dell’Arte
Detective dell’Arte
Detective dell’Arte
Famiglie al museo
A tutta scienza
Museo Casa Siviero 1 February
booking required by one o’clock on the last Thursday before the relevant Saturday casasiviero@regione.toscana.it
www.museocasasiviero.it
Museo Casa Siviero 1 March
Costume Gallery Tanto di cappello! Un accessorio un tempo indispensabile 1 February at 10 and 11.30 the Uffizi Storie di battaglie - battaglie dipinte 8 February at 10 and 11.30 Palazzo Pitti Bambini a Corte! Vita quotidiana dei piccoli di tre dinastie 16 February at 10.30 the Bargello Bargello 1840: sotto l’intonaco... l’Inferno e il Paradiso! 22 February at 10 and 11.30
A tutta scienza
Galileo Museum Sperimentiamo il Museo! 1 February at 15 Gli strumenti di Galileo 2 and 16 February at 15 “C’era una volta”... al Museo Galileo: il racconto dei burattini (ages 5 to 7) 8 February at 15 Microscopiche scoperte! 9 and 23 February at 15 Impara l’inglese con la scienza 15 February at 15 Il cannocchiale racconta 22 February at 15
Galileo Museum Sulla nave di Amerigo Vespucci! 1 March at 15 Gli strumenti di Galileo 2, 16 and 30 March at 15 “C’era una volta”... al Museo Galileo: il racconto dei burattini (ages 5 to 7) 8 March at 15 Microscopiche scoperte! 9 and 23 March at 15 La chimica di Pietro Leopoldo (ages 8 anni and up) 15 March at 15 Il cannocchiale racconta 22 March at 15 Alla scoperta dell’universo dantesco (ages 8 anni and up) 29 March at 15
Mathematical Sundays Museum of Mathematics 2 March at 16
Famiglie al museo
Museum of Mathematics 2 February at 16
the Uffizi Storie di battaglie - battaglie dipinte 8 and 22 March at 10 and 11.30 the Bargello Bargello 1840: sotto l’intonaco... l’Inferno e il Paradiso! 9 March at 10 and 11.30 Palazzo Pitti Bambini a Corte! Vita quotidiana dei piccoli di tre dinastie 23 March at 15
Musei da favola
Artigiani in famiglia
Mathematical Sundays
the Uffizi I quadri raccontano una storia 2 February at 10 and 11.30 Orsanmichele and Museo Ferragamo Storie di angeli, santi e artigiani (passeggiata in città e laboratorio) 15 February at 10.30 Palazzo Pitti La casa del Principe 23 February at 10 and 11.30
Artigiani in famiglia Horne Museum La maschera di piume 15 February at 10.30
Family Size at the CCC Strozzina
every Saturday at 15 a special interactive visit for families (adults and children aged 7 to 12) to explore contemporary art booking required 055 3917137 didatticastrozzina@palazzostrozzi.org
www.strozzina.org
at the Museo Casa Siviero learning from the detective Rodolfo Siviero
march
children
january
Horne Museum Un, due, tre... libro! 15 March at 10.30
Musei da favola
Orsanmichele and Museo Ferragamo Storie di angeli, santi e artigiani (passeggiata in città e laboratorio) 15 March at 10.30 Boboli Gardens An enchanted promenade 16 March at 10.30 Palazzo Pitti La casa del Principe 29 March at 10 and 11.30 Boboli Gardens Una passeggiata incantata 30 March at 10 and 15
Take Part in Art
Mathematical Sundays
at the Oblate the CCC Strozzina organises creative workshops for families with children aged 6 and up booking required
at the Museum of Mathematics
guided visits and surprises for families every first Sunday of the month booking required 055 7879594
Creative workshops
at the Horne Museum the museum, in collaboration with OmA, offers Artigiani in famiglia (guided visits and workshops on artisanal techniques) and Nel mondo del collezionista (special opening and activities on Sundays, until 31 December) to find out about the amazing world of Horne. For families with children aged 5 to 10 booking 055 244661 info@museohorne.it
www.museohorne.it
Musei da favola
www.archimede.ms
in the Polo Museale museums and at the Museo Ferragamo the Sezione Didattica of the Polo Museale and the Museo Ferragamo offer a series of itineraries linked to the exhibition Il calzolaio prodigioso (until 31 March 2014), designed for families with children aged 7 to 14 booking required 055 284272 (Monday and Thursday 10-13) didattica@polomuseale.firenze.it
www.polomuseale.firenze.it/didattica www.fondazioneferragamo.it
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children
Families
Birthdays at the museum
Guided visits and workshops for families with children specially designed to stimulate in participants a spirit of observation and creativity. Guided tour of the historic Fratelli Alinari building (largo Alinari, 15) is possible for groups of up to 15 people
at the Fondazione Scienza e Tecnica children aged 4 and up can celebrate their birthday playing with science, visiting the Planetarium or participating in physics experiments
at the MNAF
only upon reservation 055 216310 fax 055 2646990 mnaf@alinari.it didatticamnaf@alinari.it
www.alinarifondazione.it
Guided visits and workshops at the museum Alla scoperta del MNAF! Guided tours of the museum’s permanent exhibition La storia vera di un cavallo fotografo Guided tour on the theme of movement in photography, and a workshop on producing a ‘moving’ photograph Una camera oscura grande come la chiesa di Santa Maria Novella Guided tour on the development of the camera obscura and a workshop on optical apparatus Piazziamoci Tour around the city through photography
Activities in the exhibition Ritratti da sogno until 6 January 2014 Guided visit to the exhibition Izis. Il Poeta della Fotografia followed by a workshop on photographic portraits: mime, dressing-up and circus games to make the portrait of your dreams!
booking 055 2343723
at Palazzo Vecchio celebrate a birthday with Mus.e in a specially appointed room of Palazzo Vecchio with gifts and candles Saturday and Sunday 9.30-12.30 and 14.30-17.30 booking 055 2768224 2768558 info@muse.comune.fi.it
at the Museum of Prehistory celebrate a birthday observing and touching prehistoric objects; at the end of the visit workshops and treasure hunts booking 055 295159 info@museofiorentinopreistoria.it didattica@museofiorentinopreistoria.it
at the Archaeological Museum of Artimino children can spend a special day exploring ancient Etruria
for families with children aged 4 and up
booking required 055 8718124 333 3404244 parcoarcheologico@comune.carmignano.po.it
Robert Capa in Italia. Processo alla Fotografia from 10 January to 30 March 2014 A walk through the exhibition dedicated to the famous artist-reporter and workshop, to reflect on how images can influence historical accounts
Laboratorio Novecento. Il corpo
at the Sala delle Reali Poste from 29 October to 30 November 2013
for families with children
for family groups with children aged 5 and up
A tutti i costi. Bardini vende tutto! at Villa Bardini
on the occasion of the exhibition Il Rinascimento da Firenze a Parigi games for families with children to become an antiquarian for a day, buy, barter and auction. Every Sunday at 10-12 until 22 December 2013 no booking required information 328 5830868 bardini.atuttiicosti@gmail.com
La Bottega dei Ragazzi
The second edition of the project anticipates interaction between schools or families with works from the Gallery, including self-portraits by Kollwitz, Leger, Montessori, de Bruyckere, Tanadori, Fabre, Warhol, Woodman and De Lorenzo. All the works treat the subject of the body, and are useful in exploring the possible ‘bodily metamorphoses’ of the artists. This may help young visitors understand the physical and psychological changes of their developing body, which is interpreted, following the visit, on the basis of one of the works in the exhibition.
at the Mudi
open: Monday to Saturday 10-12. Booking required didatticacontemporanea@gmail.com
workshops and guided visits at the Innocenti and in town for children aged 3 to 11. From December 2013 MyPlace. I bambini raccontano Firenze offers interactive tours to discover Florence and workshops for families with children aged 6 to 11
Mus.e
at Palazzo Vecchio
iscrizioni@fstfirenze.it
booking bottega@istitutodelinoccenti.it 055 2478386 (Monday, Wednesday and Friday 10.30-12.30). For calendar see
Obladì
at the Oblate stories, readings, puppets and entertaining characters for all; among the initiatives, the 1st Saturday of every month Letture di Sara for children aged 4 to 7 and the 2nd Saturday until January 2014 activities in collaboration with Palazzo Strozzi
www.labottegadeiragazzi.it a collection of educational projects promoted by the municipality and by the Comune of Vinci aims to exploit the city’s heritage and Florentine civic museums. At Palazzo Vecchio guided visits led by people in costume, workshops and special itineraries for all and in several languages booking 055 2616512 (Monday-Friday Saturday 9-13) for families with children www.bibliotecadelleoblate.it •Family kit (with children aged 6 and up) •Vita di corte (ages 4 to 7) •La favola del primo viaggio intorno al mondo (ages 4 at the to 7) •Dipingere in fresco fra Quattrocento e Cinquecento (ages 8 Archaeological Museum and up) •In bottega: la tempera su tavola (ages 8 and up) •Il Biribissi (ages 8 and up) •La favola profumata della natura of Artimino dipinta (ages 4 to 7) •La favola della tartaruga con la vela guided visits, meetings, weekend workshops, (ages 4 to 7) •Invito alla Reggia (ages 8 and up) special events, walks and snacks at the for all aged 8 and up museum and in the Archaelogical Park at •A corte con Donna Isabella •I luoghi di Inferno Carmignano to discover the history of •Visita a Palazzo •Percorsi Segreti •Visita agli scavi Etruscans. For families with children and del teatro romano •Guidati da Giorgio Vasari young people
Families
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booking 055 2768224 055 2768558 (Monday-Saturday 9,30-13 and 14-17, Sunday and holidays 9.30-12.30) info@muse.comune.fi.it
www.musefirenze.it
booking required 055 8718124 333 3404244 parcoarcheologico@comune.carmignano.po.it calendar of activities on
www.parcoarcheologicocarmignano.it
9-19,
at Palazzo Strozzi for families with children aged 3 and over • Special labels designed to stimulate intergenerational discussion • Separate audioguides for adults and children • A rich programme of activities through which to explore art, for different age groups from 3 and up • The Family suitcase: the Explorer’s Map Case, with which to discover the art and artists in a truly fun and innovative way • The special Family Ticket gives family groups (up to 2 adults with children up to the age of 18) unlimited admission to the exhibitions at Palazzo Strozzi until 19 January 2014 on the occasion of the exhibition The Russian Avant-garde, Siberia and the East. Kandinsky, Malevich, Filonov, Goncharova free activities with exhibition entry ticket; booking required Sigma CSC 055 2469600 (Monday to Friday 9-13, 14-18) fax 055 244145 prenotazioni@cscsigma.it The Family suitcase is free with an exhibition ticket. To book the Explorer’s Map Case either phone beforehand +39 055 2645155 or enquire at the Info Point on the Piano Nobile. For further information and a full schedule of activities: www.palazzostrozzi.org/families
Visits with workshop The Storyteller’s Tale
Every work of art has hundreds of stories to tell, we just have to be ready to listen! Let’s hear the fables and legends hidden in each painting, playing and sketching in the exhibition. first Tuesday of the month at 17.30-18.30, on other Tuesdays upon request (minimum group participation may apply). Activity in Italian only for families with children aged 3 to 6
Artist Explorers
Enchanted places and perilous views as seen through the eyes of Russian artists of the early 20th century. From Japan to the Arctic we explore a selection of works in the exhibition and discover that taking a journey is more than just moving from one place to the next, it is also a flight of the imagination. Your personalised artist’s sketchbook captures your experiences in the galleries and becomes a souvenir of your own unique journey.
The family suitcase The Explorer’s Map Case
Interactive discovery tours of Palazzo Strozzi
The Family Suitcase devised for the exhibition The Russian Avant-garde, Siberia and the East is a very special portfolio with everything you need to become a real explorer! The kit contains a compass and maps to help you find your way around the exhibits on display and to allow you to follow in the footsteps of the future Tsar Nicholas, who set off on a journey in 1890 that took him to India, Ceylon, Java, Japan and China and all across his vast Russian domains. The Explorer’s Map Case also contains explanations and games for every age group, enabling the whole family to explore the show in a thought-provoking and fun way. every day always available in English for everyone aged 3 and up
Look, Discover, Create... Palazzo Strozzi
Have you ever really looked closely at Palazzo Strozzi? We use our senses to discover the sounds, colours and forms of this building and its relationship with the city. Games and activities help us discover the details which hold the clues to understanding this ‘grand home’ of the Strozzi Family. first Sunday of the month at 15.30-16.30 for families with children aged 7 to 12 no exhibition ticket required and it is possible to attend only one visit. Activity in Italian only
Special events Christmas at Palazzo Strozzi
An afternoon of fun and creativity dedicated to children and families. 8 December 2013 at 15-18 no booking required
every Sunday at 10.30-12.30 activity in Italian; available in English on request at 055 3917141 (minimum group participation may apply) for families with children aged 7 to 12
Workshops
at the Pecci
Familiarizzare il museo
workshops, guided visits, lectures and meetings to the current exhibitions. For adults and children
at the Natural History and Anthropology Museums
booking 0574 531835 edu@centropecci.it calendar on website
workshops, games, guided tours for the old and the young playing through the museum collection
www.centropecci.it
booking 055 2756444
www.msn.unifi.it
illustrations by Silvia Cheli
children
Families
in tuscany
The walls of Lucca
Lucca has been surrounded by city walls for centuries: Roman walls initially, today practically nonexistent, then medieval walls – finished in around 1260 and surviving in the form of two gates and sections incorporated into the new urban expansion – and lastly Renaissance walls. For the city of Lucca the year 2013 undoubtedly marks an important date, for her Renaissance walls, those universally familiar, are now 500 years old. 1513 was not the year construction began, but the year of the ‘tagliata’, the demolition of houses, churches, trees and everything else that might impede the clearing of areas necessary for the building of the new fortifications: from the moving of the church of Santi Paolino e Donato, knocked down and built elsewhere, to the uprooting of single vine plants. However, such was the financial undertaking, and the extent of the debts contracted by the state of Lucca for the purchase of lands and for the reconstruction of the church of Santi Paolino e Donato on its present site, that it was only after many years, in 1544, that what we like to call ‘il cantiere dei lucchesi’, the Luccans’ building-site, effectively saw the light of day. The Renaissance walls, built at a time when war was fought with the massive use of firearms, were, in fact, only a deterrent, and as things turned out they never actually fulfilled their primary purpose as defence walls. However, the walls protected the city from outside dangers, whether real or imagined, and by making possible the continuation of Lucca’s freedom were a guarantee that libertas was not just a word, but became a real economic and cultural value. A value consolidated over centuries, during which Lucca was always the capital of a small state, but was nonetheless a state. The walls therefore represented economic wealth, since local trade and outside relations guaranteed by its libertas were one of the main reasons for Lucca’s prosperity, as well as cultural richness, since deep respect for the ideas of others and a strong ethical independence, at least until the beginning of the 18th century, were always jealously guarded values within the city. The walls, therefore, are at once a symbol of the defence of values and openness toward the outside world: these are the aspects that Lucca intends to celebrate on the 5th centenary of its city walls.
Alessandro Biancalana President of the Opera delle Mura di Lucca
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The walls in numbers 3 gates originally existing: San Pietro, San Donato and Santa Maria 4 kilometres and 200 metres of ramparts with scarp-wall 7 gates built over the centuries 11 bastions, 9 of which with an arrowhead design, projecting and with orillons, a type of construction that became established in the middle of the 16th century 12 curtain walls, with elevated terre-plein, joining the 11 bastions together 30 metres the thickness at the base of the wall of fortification 35 metres the width of the ditch that encircled the wall externally about 2,000 men – diggers, carters, carpenters, stokers, blacksmiths and builders – working on the site daily
October 2013-October 2014 To celebrate the 500th anniversary of its city walls Lucca is staging a packed programme of events that start at the beginning of October with a historical re-enactment linked to the opening of the city gates. The calendar of events includes exhibitions, conferences, lectures, concerts and didactic activities for students and young visitors. Full calendar of events on website
www.lemuradilucca.it
in tuscany
The walls of Lucca 1513-2013
Chronology of the walls 2nd century BC building of the Roman walls 1270 completion of the second ring of walls late 15th-early 16th century construction of the third ring of defensive walls with interventions on the previous circuit 1513 preparation of the area in which the fourth ring of defensive walls would be built 1544 opening of the construction site for the Renaissance walls, made necessary by advances in military technology and the use of new weaponry. Building work was directed by experts from a number of Italian cities, particularly Urbino, and by Flemish technicians, and employed an enormous number of men and skilled labourers. For the simplest tasks recourse was made to the ‘comandate’, the obligatory enrolment of workers hired for the day or the week from among the local population 1650 completion of work on the construction site 1811 inauguration of Porta Elisa, built in the neoclassical style
1812 flooding of the Serchio river: the city was left unscathed, protected by its walls and by the sealing of the gates 1818 conversion of a part of the walls into a green area by the architect Lorenzo Nottolini on the wishes of Maria Luisa di Borbone, Duchess of Lucca 1820 establishment of the Botanical Garden, which soon became a centre of scientific studies and the diffusion of rare and exotic species 1840 construction of the Caffè delle Mura on the Baluardo Santa Maria, rebuilt further back in 1885; the defence walls by now had become a public park, given over to leisure and recreation activities 1866 purchase of the walls belonging to the State by the City administration: the transition from royal government to city administration would guarantee their survival intact 1910 opening of the Porta Sant’Anna 1930 building of the Porta San Iacopo, also known as Porta IV Novembre
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