The Uffizi Gallery In Florence ~ The Finest Collection Of Renaissance Art In The World

Written by Bernardo Ludovica Friday, 20 January 2012 20:30

The Uffizi Palace is one of the most loved monuments in Florence and contains the world’s leading collection of renaissance art. Originally commissioned by Cosimo I, Duke of Florence and the first Grand Duke of Tuscany, the Uffizi was designed by Giorgio Vasari in the middle of the 16th century. The intention of Cosimo I was to build a palace that could host the thirteen administrative and judicial Magistrature or Uffizi, from which the palace would take its name. Vasari was also responsible for the building, five years later, of an overhead corridor passing above Ponte Vecchio and the Church of Santa Felicità, to link the Uffizi to the Pitti Palace, the new residence of the Medici family, and which provides stunning views of the palace courtyard and Arno river. The building has an unusual and singular horseshoe shape, which opens towards the Arno River. The two floors of the building, rise above a pillared portico that runs along the whole length of the palace. The portico niches contain statues of Florentine dignitaries and artists from the middle Ages to the 19th century. It was Francesco I de' Medici, Cosimo I’s son, who first created an art Gallery on the second floor of the Palazzo degli Uffizi to entertain himself, during his walks, with the collection of paintings, sculptures and arrases belonging to the Medici family. The key point in the history of the Uffizi came in 1737, when the last Medici heiress, Anna Maria Luisa moved to France and signed an agreement that all the Medici artworks were not to be removed from Florence. The gallery had been open to visitors by request since the sixteenth century, and in 1765 it was officially opened to the public. Over the years, the Uffizi has survived wartime bombing, flooding in 1966 and 2007 and a terrorist car bombing (attributed to the Sicilian Mafia) in 1993 which damaged some frescoes in the Niobe room beyond repair. In addition to its galleries, the Uffizi contains teaching facilities, an art restoration laboratory, photographic studio and research center. Rennovations are currently under way on parts of the building, under the “New Uffizi” project. When completed these will increase the gallery space, allow more of the collection to be put on public display and reduce the overcrowding caused by almost 2 million visitors every year. Visit the Uffizi’s website at … http://www.polomuseale.firenze.it/english/musei/uffizi/

The exhibition rooms are composed of over 45 rooms containing about 1,700 paintings, 300 sculptures, 46 tapestries and 14 pieces of furniture and/or ceramics. The Uffizi actually owns about 4,800 works, the remainder are either in storage or on loan to other museums. On the ground floor, is the series of frescoes by Andrea del Castagno as well as an Annunciation by Botticelli (a fresco detached from the church of S. Martino alla Scala). A large staircase, built by Vasari, leads to the second floor, were the Medici theatre once stood. This area now contains the Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe, an exceptional graphic collection comprising more than 120,000 works, from the 14th to the 20th century. On the third floor are two vestibules, which lead into the galleries and which contain a collection of busts of grand dukes and Roman statues. Three corridors on this floor contain the bulk of the visible collection. The first corridor contains the religious art of the Renaissance and the artworks by Flemish artists. Along the perimeter of the corridor is the Medicean collection of head moulds, on the vaulted ceilings are frescoes representing animals, imaginary monsters, satyrs and the Medicean achievements. The first rooms are dedicated to the art of the 13th and 14th centuries, including “The Madonna d'Ognissanti” by Giotto, “The Maestà di Santa Trinita” by Cimabue and “The Maestà” by Duccio di Buoninsegna. From the 14th century the “Triptych of San Matteo” by Andrea di Cione, the “Polyptych of San Pancrazio” by Bernardo Daddi and the “Presentation to the Temple” by Ambrogio Lorenzetti lead into the collection of international Gothic works. These include “The Adoration of the Magi” by Lorenzo Monaco. Among the artworks of the early Renaissance the “Coronation of the Blessed Virgin” by Beato Angelico, the “Battle of San Romano” by Paolo Uccello, “Portrait of the Dukes of Urbino” by Piero della Francesca and “The Coronation of the Blessed Virgin” by Filippo Lippi. These are followed by the collection of Boticelli masterpieces, including “La calunnia”, “Primavera”, “The Birth of Venus”, “The Adoration of the Magi”, “Madonna della Melagrana”, and “Coronation of the Blessed Virgin”. The Renaissance is celebrated by two magnificent paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, “l'Adorazione dei Magi” and “The “Annunciation” alongside works by Pietro Perugino and Piero di Cosimo. Superb examples of Florentine portraiture from the 16th century include Medici portraits by Pontormo, ‘l'Angiolino musicante’ by Rosso Fiorentino and ‘la Dama col Petrarchino’ by Andrea del Sarto. In a series of adjoining rooms are the works of German art from the 15th and 16th century and paintings from Lombardia and Emilia that evoke mythological tales and detailed Flemish landscapes, including “Adam and Eve” by Lucas Cranach, “Adoration of the Magi” by Andrea Mantegna and “The Blessed Virgin adoring the Child” by Correggio.

The second corridor contains Roman statues and portraits under the frescoed vaulted ceilings. The miniatures Cabinet opens off this corridor. The third Corridor contains the 16th century artworks by Michelangelo (“The Tondo Doni”) and Rafael (“Madonna of the Goldfinch” and “Pope Leo X with Cardinals Giulio de' Medici and Luigi de' Rossi”), Titian (“Flora” and “Venus of Urbino), Parmigianino (“The Madonna of the Long Neck”) amongst others. From the 17th century works, highlights include, Peter Paul Rubens (“Judith with the Head of Holofernes”, “Portrait of Isabella Brant”, “Henry IV at the Battle of Ivry”, “Self-Portrait without a Hat” and others), Caravaggio (“The Sacrifice of Isaac” and “Medusa”), Rembrandt Van Rijn (“Self-portrait as a Young Man”, “Self-portrait as an Old Man” and “Portrait of an Old Man”) and views by Canaletto. The Uffizi now houses a huge artistic heritage consisting of thousands of paintings from medieval to modern times, a great number of antique sculptures, illuminations, and tapestries. It is also famous for its collection of self-portraits, which constantly grew through new acquisitions and donations of contemporary artists, as well as for another remarkable collection, that of the Cabinet of Drawings and Prints. Throughout the 19th century, new rooms were opened and the picture gallery continued to expand through the addition of major works including Botticelli's famous The Birth of Venus (acquired in 1815) and Leonardo da Vinci's Annunciation (acquired in 1867). The acquisition of the Primavera, the splendid panel painted by Botticelli around 1482, dates to 1919. The 20th century led to the re-arrangement of the works, on various occasions, much restoration and, in recent times, the definitive arrangement of the Contini Bonacossi collection.

From March 11th 2011 until June 12th 2011, the Uffizi is hosting “Figure, memory, Space”, a selection of drawings from the 15th century taken equally from the Uffizi and British Museum collections. The exhibition unites two of the most important graphics collections in the world in a partnership symbolically using an identical number of loans from each collection. The intention is to focus on the decades from the start of the fifteenth century to the early years of the sixteenth when drawing established its role as an independent artistic expression. The artists featured are all outstanding and include Florentine and central Italian artists such as Lorenzo Monaco, Beato Angelico, Filippo and Filippino Lippi, the Pollaiolo, Verrocchio, Botticelli, Perugino and Ghirlandaio right through to Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo. Alongside these, northern Italian artists represented include Pisanello, Amico Aspertini, the Ferrara school, Jacopo and Gentile Bellini, Mantegna and Titian. Each of them offers their own interpretation of drawing, an intimate expression of their individual draughtsmanship, elaboration of a style, experimentation of a technique and meditation on the subject. In conjunction with this exhibition, in the Reali Poste, the Prints and Drawings Department will be displaying a further selection of fifty drawings, engravings and jewelry, again inspired by the three categories of Figures, Memories and Space. These are works visible only in Florence (the main exhibition had previously been on show at the British Museum), such as Mantegna’s Judith or the small cartoon for the Equestrian Monument to Sir John Hawkwood by Paolo Uccello and two small sketches once attributed to Cimabue, possibly by Giorgio Vasari himself. Finally, in the actual Gallery around twenty paintings by Renaissance artists have been provided with informative panels designed to connect the paintings with the preparatory studies on show in the Reali Poste. The shows are accompanied by two catalogues published by Giunti. The first of these is an Italian version of the preceding English publication, while the second is devoted to the works on display in the Prints and Drawings Department and to issues connected with collecting, taste and the critical reception of fifteenth-century Italian drawings and Florentine prints from Vasari to Berenson.