There are just a few days left to catch this exhibition in Palazzo Pitti (Forged in Fire. Bronze sculpture in Florence under the last Medici; on until 12^th January 2020), which illustrates the bronze sculpture made for the Medici court in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, some of the most important work in this medium in Europe at the time. For long this period in Florence (beginning with the reign of Cosimo II) was equated with decadence and it has only been since the 1960s that scholars have begun to re-evaluate the role of the Medici grand-dukes in promoting excellence in art and their activity as collectors, and the exhibition has been an occasion to study in depth the sculptors at work in this Baroque period. Accompanied by a superb scholarly catalogue, complete with full biographies of each artist, it underlines the standing of artists such as Giovanni Battista Foggini, Massimiliano Soldani-Benzi and Giuseppe Piamontini, all three of whom produced large, sometimes life-size bronzes as well as the much more familiar small bronzes (masters of which including Antonio and Giovanni Francesco Susini and Pietro Tacca are well represented in the exhibition). The curators have even been able to retrieve eleven of the twelve celebrated bronze groups of religious subjects made between 1722 and 1725, by many of the artists present in the exhibition, for Anna Maria Luisa, the Electress Palatine, and which she kept in her rooms in Palazzo Pitti (these later found their way to museums as far afield as Madrid, Detroit, Berlin, Birmingham and St Petersburg). Soldani-Benzi’s patron was the Prince of Liechtenstein and works from the ‘Princely Collections, Vaduz-Vienna’ are also present in the exhibition—seen in Florence for the first time. The sculptures on show are mostly in patinated bronze, which sometimes takes on a greenish shiny tone, or reddish tint, rather than the more familiar ink black of Renaissance bronzes.

Apart from the numerous sculptures, a collection of drawings by Soldani-Benzi (only acquired by the Uffizi in 2017) is exhibited opposite a pair of very fine green porphyry vases with gilt bronze decoration by the same artist (and preserved in Palazzo Pitti).

The works by the lesser-known Piamontini include very impressive large-scale bronzes (lent from a Ministry in Rome) closely inspired by ancient marbles, some of which could be described as reproductions of Classical works in a different medium.

In 1687 Foggini, after a spell in Rome, was appointed court sculptor to the grand-dukes and was also responsible for producing furniture and other fine objects, some in pietre dure. His versatility as a sculptor is well illustrated in this exhibition and he emerges as the central artist of his time in Florence. For more details of the exhibition, see here.

by Alta Macadam, author of Blue Guide Florence.

For anyone taking advantage of the relevant calm in Florence this month (when the queue outside the Accademia, the city’s most famous gallery, is usually minimal—though it is still always worth booking your visit online) there is a fascinating little exhibition now running (until 5 May)..

What brings these eight paintings and single piece of sculpture together is the fact that they have all been added to the Gallery’s holdings during the tenure of the new director, Cecilie Hollberg, in other words, over the last three years.

The early paintings are all gold-ground and each has a story to tell about its provenance and connection to other works in the Gallery’s collection. Some were in storage elsewhere in Florence, others were exported illegally and have been recovered by the police, others have been purchased. They are beautifully exhibited in a little room and there is something almost touching about them, given that they have been retrieved from oblivion, carefully dusted off and restored, and put in their historical context. None of them is of the first importance but all of them add something to the glorious history of art in Florence.

The obscurity of some pieces is underlined by the attribution of two of the works, one to the ‘Master of 1416’ and the other to the ‘Master of 1419’. The former is a copy of Bernardo Daddi’s famous Maestà in Orsanmichele, painted some 60 years earlier, showing that the Florentines of the early 15^th century still considered it one of the most beautiful works in the city. The latter unidentified ‘Master’ is named after a work now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Cleveland, Ohio. The painting by him here, The Most Holy Trinity (La Santissima Trinità), shows God the Father enthroned holding an image of Christ on the Cross, with the dove of the Holy Spirit flying down towards it. The Gallery possesses another (more important) painting of the same subject, the central panel of a triptych by Nardo di Cione. The composition is very similar, but in Nardo’s work God the Father is sitting on a beautiful red-black-and-gold cloth and the Dove perches in the centre of Christ’s halo.

The Madonna of Heavenly Humility (she is seated on clouds rather than on the ground, hence the neat title) is attributed to a Master named after the Bracciolini Chapel in the church of San Francesco in Pistoia. The Child is rather oversize, but this work was considered important enough to be confiscated by the state (after it was illegally exported from Italy to Switzerland in 2003) in order to preserve it in its Tuscan context.

There are also two doors of a tabernacle known once to have been in the Corsini Palace (which still contains the most important private collection in Florence, albeit closed to the public). They are by the prolific painter Mariotto di Nardo (son of Nardo di Cione) and are of exceptional interest for their decoration in gilded pastiglia, which forms leafy frames all around a scene of the Annunciation and figures of four saints. In another work by Mariotto in the exhibition, the Coronation of the Virgin with Angels, the painter has characteristically included lots more angels in the background depicted in gold.

The newly acquired piece of sculpture is a portrait bust of Giovanni Battista Niccolini, signed in 1827 by Lorenzo Bartolini, the most important sculptor of his time. The sitter, Niccolini, was a playwright, born in Pisa in 1782 and who died in Florence in 1862. The bust will be displayed beside the original plaster cast Bartolini made for it, which together with numerous other works from his studio was already owned by the Gallery. The bust was purchased by the newly-established Friends of the Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze, who are giving welcome support to its activities.

After the magnificent exhibition on the 14th-century fabric industry, held here early in 2018, it seems that the museum’s policy (since it certainly has no need to increase its visitor numbers), at least for the time being, will be to hold small, choice exhibitions such as this one, which do not demand huge expenditure (the cost of the entrance ticket will not be increased during these shows).

I was interested to note that in the gallery with Michelangelo’s Slaves and his St Matthew (which leads up to the tribune with the colossal David), the label on the Pietà from Palestrina has at last been changed and its attribution to Michelangelo given as ‘very doubtful’ and still an ‘open subject’ (in fact the latest edition of the Blue Guide Florence chose to ignore it). At the same time, though, a fascinating suggestion has been made on the notice: that this could be a tribute to Michelangelo by the great Baroque sculptor and architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini. One of the tasks of the Blue Guides is to ensure the information provided is up-to-date.

by Alta Macadam, author of Blue Guide Florence.