Showing posts with label Uffizi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Uffizi. Show all posts

13 February 2018

Benvenuto Cellini – sculptor and goldsmith

Creator of the famous Perseus bronze had a dark history


Cellini's bronze of Perseus and the Head of Medusa in Piazza della Signoria in Florence
Cellini's bronze of Perseus with the Head of
Medusa
in Piazza della Signoria in Florence
The colourful life of the Renaissance artist Benvenuto Cellini ended on this day in 1571 with his death in Florence at the age of 70.

A contemporary of Michelangelo, the Mannerist Cellini was most famous for his bronze sculpture of Perseus with the Head of Medusa, which still stands where it was erected in 1554 in the Loggia dei Lanzi of the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, and for the table sculpture in gold he created as a salieri - salt cellar - for Francis I of France.

The Cellini Salt Cellar, as it is generally known, measuring 26cm (10ins) by 33.5cm (13.2ins), is now kept at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, with an insurance value of $60 million.

His works apart, Cellini was also known for an eventful personal life, in which his violent behaviour frequently landed him in trouble. He killed at least two people while working in Rome as a young man and claimed also to have shot dead Charles III, Duke of Bourbon, during the 1527 Siege of Rome by mutinous soldiers of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V.

Cellini was also imprisoned for alleged embezzlement of the gems from the tiara of Pope Clement VII, famously escaping from jail at the Castel Sant’Angelo by climbing down a rope of knotted bedsheets, and for immorality.

He was a self-confessed bisexual, being found guilty of sodomy on a number of occasions.  One such charge, brought following accusations made by a male apprentice in his Florence workshop, led to a prison sentence of four years, commuted to house arrest following the intervention of the Medici family.

Cellini's extraordinary salt cellar in gold is insured for a value of $60 million
Cellini's extraordinary salt cellar in gold is insured
for a value of $60 million
Much of this is known because Cellini documented his life in an autobiography, the first by a significant Renaissance figure, in which he shared the details of his racy exploits. 

Cellini was apprenticed as a metalworker in the studio of the Florentine goldsmith Andrea di Sandro Marcone. He might have stayed in Florence had he not twice had to leave to escape the consequences of his violent behaviour.

After fleeing to Rome, he worked for the bishop of Salamanca, Sigismondo Chigi, and Pope Clement VII, which is how he came to participate on the side of the pontiff in defending Rome against the imperial forces in 1527, where he claimed not only to have killed Charles III of Bourbon but also to have shot, possibly fatally, the Prince of Orange, Philibert of Chalon.

Having survived the sack of Rome, he returned to Florence and in 1528 worked in Mantua, making a seal for Cardinal Gonzaga, which is now the property of the city’s Episcopal Archives.  Back in Rome, he then executed several works in gold for Clement VII, although apart from two medals made in 1534, which can be seen at the Uffizi in Florence, none survive.

His violent ways continued. After his brother, Cecchino, had killed a corporal of the Roman Watch and in turn received fatal wounds from the gun of another soldier, Cellini meted out his own justice by murdering his brother’s killer. He later murdered another man, this time a rival goldsmith.

A portrait bust of Cellini by Raffaello Romanelli  can be found on Florence's Ponte Vecchio
A portrait bust of Cellini by Raffaello Romanelli
 can be found on Florence's Ponte Vecchio
Amazingly, he was absolved by Clement VII’s successor, Pope Paul III, but the following year, having wounded a notary, he fled from Rome and settled back in Florence.

He made his first visit to France as a guest of Francis I in 1538. It was two years later that he arrived at Fontainebleau, carrying with him an unfinished salieri, which he had originally offered to Cardinal Ippolito d’Este of Ferrara, and which he now completed in gold for the French king. The piece, which has the figures of a man and a women symbolising the sea and the Earth, and in which tiny models of a ship and a temple were intended to be receptacles for the condiments, is the only surviving fully authenticated Cellini work in precious metal. Modelled by hand rather than cast, it has been dubbed the Mona Lisa of small sculptures.

While in France, Cellini modelled and cast his first large-scale work, a large bronze lunette of the Nymph of Fontainebleau for the entrance to the Louvre.

He left Paris to return to Florence in 1545, at which point he was welcomed by Cosimo de’ Medici and entrusted with the commissions for the bronze Perseus in the Loggia dei Lanzi, and for a colossal bust of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, now at the Bargello museum, a short distance away.

Cellini’s other late works include his marble figures of Apollo and Hyacinth (1546) and of Narcissus (1546–47), which are also in the Bargello, as is a small relief of a greyhound made as a trial cast for the Perseus (1545).

There is a statue of Cellini in the  Piazzale degli Uffizi
There is a statue of Cellini in the
Piazzale degli Uffizi
After the unveiling of the Perseus, he began work on a marble crucifix originally intended for his own tomb in the Florence church of Santissima Annunziata, but now in the church of the royal monastery of the Escorial in Spain.

He began to write his autobiography in 1558 and completed it in 1562, dictating the text to an assistant in his workshop.

First printed in Italy in 1728, the book was translated into English in 1771. Composed in colloquial language, it is enormously valuable in providing a first-hand account of life in Clement VII’s Rome, the Paris of Francis I, and the Florence of Cosimo de’ Medici.

Michelangelo's David (left) and Bartolommeo Bandinelli's Hercules and Cacus in Florence's Piazza della Signoria
Michelangelo's David (left) and Bartolommeo Bandinelli's
Hercules and Cacus in Florence's Piazza della Signoria
Travel tip:

Florence’s Piazza della Signoria, situated right in the heart of the city, close to the Duomo and the Uffizi Gallery, is home to a series of important sculptures, including Giambologna’s The Rape of the Sabine Women and his Equestrian Monument of Cosimo I, Baccio Bandinelli’s Hercules and Cacus, the Medici Lions by Fancelli and Vacca, The Fountain of Neptune by Bartolemeo Ammannati, copies of Donatello’s Judith and Holofernes and Il Marzocco (the Lion), and the copy of Michelangelo’s David, at the entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio.


The Palazzo del Bargello in Via del Proconsolo is home to many masterpieces
The Palazzo del Bargello in Via del Proconsolo
is home to many masterpieces
Travel tip:

As well as works by Cellini, other great Renaissance sculptures can be appreciated in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello - the Bargello National Museum - situated just a short distance from Piazza della Signoria in Via del Proconsolo. The museum houses masterpieces by Michelangelo, Donatello, Giambologna, Vincenzo Gemito, Jacopo Sansovino, Gianlorenzo Bernini and many works by the Della Robbia family.

More reading:




Also on this day:





(Picture credits: Perseus statue by Denise Zavala; Cellini Salt Cellar by Jerzy Strzelecki; Romanelli bust by Grzegorz Gołębiowski; Uffizi statue by Jebulon; Piazza della Signoria statues by Richard White; Palazzo Bargello by Kandi; all via Wikimedia Commons)









28 January 2018

Simonetta Vespucci – Renaissance beauty

Noblewoman hailed as embodiment of female perfection


Simonetta Vespucci, as recalled by Sandro Botticelli in his 1480s Portrait of a Woman
Simonetta Vespucci, as recalled by Sandro
Botticelli in his 1480s Portrait of a Woman
Simonetta Vespucci, a young noblewoman who became the most sought-after artist’s model in Florence in the mid-15th century, is thought to have been born on this day in 1453.

Born Simonetta Cattaneo to a Genoese family, she was taken to Florence in 1469 when she married Marco Vespucci, an eligible Florentine nobleman who was a distant cousin of the explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci.

She quickly became the talk of Florentine society. Soon known as La Bella Simonetta, she captivated painters and young noblemen alike with her beauty. 

It is said that, shortly before her arrival, a group of artists had been discussing their idea of the characteristics of perfect female beauty and were stunned, on meeting Simonetta, to discover that their idealised woman actually existed.

The Medici brothers, Lorenzo and Giuliano, were said to have been besotted with her, Giuliano in particular, while she is thought to have been the model for several of Sandro Botticelli’s portraits of women.

The female figure standing on a shell in Botticelli’s masterpiece, The Birth of Venus, so closely resembles the woman in the paintings accepted as being Simonetta Vespucci that some critics insist he must have based his Venus on her.

The Venus in Botticelli’s Primavera has the same hair colour and similar facial features, as does one of the figures in his Three Graces.

Another Botticelli Portrait of a Woman, clearly of the same model
Another Botticelli Portrait of a Woman,
clearly of the same model
The romantic notion that Botticelli, who never married, carried with him an unrequited love for Simonetta is reinforced by the story that, having outlived her, he asked to be buried at the Church of Ognissanti in Florence because she had been laid to rest there, although historians have pointed out that he had been baptized there and was buried with his family.

Other artists were similarly inspired by her. The 1490 Portrait of a woman by Piero di Cosimo is also believed to be Simonetta Vespucci.

Considering the impact she supposedly made, in reality her life was tragically short.

The daughter of a Genoese nobleman, Gaspare Catteneo, she was probably born in Genoa but some like to believe she was born in Porto Venere, the coastal town near La Spezia, the place that legend says was the birthplace of Venus herself.

Whichever it is true, she is said to have met Marco Simonetti while he was attending the Banco di San Giorgio. The young man asked her father for her hand and Gaspare, aware that the marriage would enhance his family’s social standing through Vespucci’s connection with the Medici, gave his approval.

In any event, both Lorenzo and Giuliano fell for her charms on their first meeting, and offered the couple use of a palazzo in Via Larga for the wedding ceremony followed by the wedding breakfast at their lavish Villa di Careggi.  The groom and his bride were both around 16 years old.

The Botticelli masterpiece The Birth of Venus is thought to have been inspired by Simonetta Vespucci
The Botticelli masterpiece The Birth of Venus is thought to
have been inspired by Simonetta Vespucci
Afterwards, Lorenzo was too busy with the politics of the day to pay Simonetta much attention but it was a different story for Giuliano, who did not conceal his feelings despite her now being married.

On one occasion, he took part in La Giostra, a jousting tournament, carrying a banner on which was a picture of Simonetta and an inscription, in French, that read La Sans Pareille, which translates in context as ‘The Woman Unparalleled’.

Guiliano won the tournament and dedicated his victory to ‘the Queen of Beauty’ and there have been suggestions that the pair become lovers, although historians think this was unlikely.

Simonetta died just one year later, at the age of 22.  It is thought she was stricken with tuberculosis, known at the time as ‘the subtle evil’ and a disease that was usually fatal.

During her funeral procession, it is said that the coffin was opened so that onlookers could appreciate her beauty one last time, although it appears to have been preserved for posterity in art.

The Uffizi overlooks the Arno river in central Florence
The Uffizi overlooks the Arno river in central Florence
Travel tip:

Botticelli’s paintings The Birth of Venus and Primavera can both be found in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, one of the largest and most important art museums in the world and the most visited art gallery in Italy, attracting more than two million visitors a year, with so many wanting to make it part of their experience of Florence that turning up without a pre-booked ticket can mean waiting up to five hours to be allowed in.  The complex of buildings that make up the gallery was originally designed by Giorgio Vasari on behalf of Cosimo I de’ Medici as offices – uffizi – for the Florentine magistrates.

The Villa di Castello is set in extensive gardens
The Villa di Castello is set in extensive gardens
Travel tip:

It is thought Cosimo I de’ Medici also commissioned Botticelli to provide some paintings to decorate the walls of a country house, the Villa di Castello, that the family had acquired in the hills northwest of Florence, near the town of Sesto Fiorentino and not far from the city's airport. Cosimo also commissioned an engineer, Piero di San Casciano, to build a system of aqueducts to carry water to the villa and gardens, a sculptor, Niccolo Tribolo, to create fountains and statues in the gardens and Vasari to restore and enlarge the main building.






15 November 2017

Roberto Cavalli – fashion designer

Florentine who conceived the sand-blasted look for jeans


Roberto Cavalli
Roberto Cavalli
The designer Roberto Cavalli was born on this day in 1940 in Florence.

Cavalli has become well-known in high-end Italian fashion for his exotic prints and for creating the sand-blasted look for jeans.

From an artistic family, Cavalli has a grandfather, Giuseppe Rossi, who was a talented painter whose work is on show in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

As a student, Cavalli attended an art institute where he learnt about printing textiles and in the early 1970s he invented and patented a printing process for leather and began creating patchworks of different materials.

When he took samples of his work to Paris he received commissions from such fashion houses as Hermes and Pierre Cardin.

At the age of 32, Cavalli presented the first collection in his name in Paris and then showed it in Florence and Milan.

He opened his first boutique in Saint Tropez in 1972 and added further boutiques in Italy and other parts of France.

Roberto Cavalli with his wide Eva Duringer pictured in Vienna in 2013
Roberto Cavalli with his wife Eva Duringer pictured
in Vienna in 2013
In 1994 he showed the first sand-blasted jeans in his autumn/winter collection and then worked with Lycra to invent stretch jeans in 1995.

In 2001 he opened his first café store in Florence and this was followed by the opening in Milan of the Just Cavalli café and another boutique on the fashionable Via della Spiga.

His clothes, menswear, jewellery and perfumes now sell all over the world.

Cavalli has two children from his first marriage and three from his second marriage. He met his second wife, Eva Duringer, when he was a judge at the 1977 Miss Universe contest, where she was representing Austria.

Leading female pop singers such as Christina Aguilera and Jennifer Lopez have asked Cavalli to create costumes for them and he also created the wardrobe worn by the Spice Girls on their reunion tour.

Catwalk stars such as Jessica Stam, Eva Riccobono and Laetitia Casta are among the models who have helped promote his designs. 

In 2011 he told Vogue Magazine that he was reluctant to retire, saying ‘…fashion is a part of my DNA. I could never live without it.’

The Piazzale degli Uffizi Gallery in Florence
The Piazzale degli Uffizi Gallery in Florence
Travel tip:

Work on the Uffizi began in 1560 in order to create a suite of offices (uffici) for the new administration of Cosimo I. The architect, Vasari, created a wall of windows on the upper storey and from about 1580, the Medici began to use this well-lit space to display their art treasures, which was the start of one of the oldest and most famous art galleries in the world. The present day Uffizi Gallery, in Piazzale degli Uffizi, is open from 8.15 am to 6.50 pm from Tuesday to Sunday.

Chic Via della Spiga in Milan
Chic Via della Spiga in Milan
Travel tip:

The Via della Spiga, where Cavalli opened a boutique, is one of Milan’s top shopping streets, forming the north-east boundary of the city’s fashion quarter, of which Via Manzoni, Via Monte Napoleone and Corso Venezia form the other borders. Details of the other shops in Via della Spiga can be found at the Amici di Via della Spiga website.



8 October 2017

Vincenzo Peruggia – art thief

Gallery worker who stole the Mona Lisa


A police mugshot of Vincenzo Peruggia
A police mugshot of Vincenzo Peruggia
Vincenzo Peruggia, a handyman who earned notoriety when he pulled off the most famous art theft in history, was born on this day in 1881 in Dumenza in Lombardy, a village on the Swiss border.

Peruggia stole Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa from the Louvre in Paris and evaded detection for more than two years, even though he was questioned by police over the painting’s disappearance.

It was only when he attempted to sell the iconic painting - thought to be of Lisa del Giocondo, the wife of a cloth and silk merchant - to an art dealer in Florence that he was arrested.

Experts accept that, although the Mona Lisa - sometimes known in Italy as La Gioconda - was a notable work, it is open to debate whether it was the best of all the magnificent pieces created by the Tuscan Renaissance genius, whose other masterpieces included The Last Supper and The Virgin of the Rocks and other outstanding portraits, such as The Lady with an Ermine.

Yet it is without question the most famous painting in the world and enjoys that status largely because of Peruggia’s audacious crime.

The theft took place on August 21, 1911, a Monday morning, when Peruggia removed the painting from the wall of the Salon Carré in the Musée du Louvre on the Right Bank of the Seine. He took the canvas from its frame inside a protective glass case and left the building with it hidden under a smock.

Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa
Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa
Detail varies in the stories of the theft. Some say he entered the Louvre the day before, knowing the museum would be closed on the Monday, hid in a closet overnight and left the following morning, wearing a coat of the kind worn by workers at the gallery and concealing the canvas underneath.

His own version of events under interrogation was that he entered the museum at 7am on the Monday morning, mingling with a group of employees arriving for work.  He claimed he had gone to the Salon Carré and waited until it was unattended before making off with the painting.

Thefts were not uncommon at the Louvre at the time and there were 200 security staff.  However, with 400 rooms to watch over the guards could not be in two places at once.  It was not unusual, in any case, for paintings to be removed sometimes, so that the frame and case could be cleaned.

Peruggia may have stolen the coat but it is possible he was in possession of one anyway, having previously worked at the gallery, where one of his jobs, ironically, was making glass cases of the kind in which the Mona Lisa was kept.

What is not disputed is that he took the painting back to his apartment in Paris and hid it inside a trunk with a false bottom. Police visited him in the apartment twice but accepted his story that he had been working elsewhere on the day of the theft.

Peruggia, who had done some painting himself and moved to Paris in 1908 in the hope of being discovered, remained in the French capital for two years, in which time the press indulged in endless speculation as to who might be responsible.

Another Da Vinci portrait, Lady with an Ermine, which some experts believe is superior.
Another Da Vinci portrait, Lady with an Ermine,
which some experts believe is superior.
A theory that modernist enemies of traditional art must be involved led to Pablo Picasso coming under suspicion for a while. Indeed, police arrested the avantgarde poet and playwright Guillaume Apollinaire and questioned him for a week before being letting him go.

In the meantime, the story of the mystery of its whereabouts turned the Mona Lisa into the best known work of art in the world.

Eventually, in November 1913, calling himself Leonardo Vincenzo, Peruggia made his move, writing to Alfredo Geri, an art dealer who kept a gallery in Florence with an offer to bring the painting to Italy.

He claimed he would be performing an act of patriotism, believing the Mona Lisa was in France only because Napoleon had stolen it.  In fact, while Napoleon at one time had it in his home, it was rightfully in the possession of the French nation, having been bought from Leonardo da Vinci by King Francis I in 1516.

Peruggia travelled to Florence by train, having packed his clothes and other possessions in the trunk containing the canvas. He took the painting to Geri, whereupon he somewhat undermined the magnanimity of his ‘patriotic’ gesture by asking for a reward of 500,000 lire.

Geri persuaded him to leave the painting overnight so that he could show it to Giovanni Poggi, director of the Uffizi Gallery, for authentication. In fact, Geri contacted the police and when Peruggia returned to his hotel he was arrested.

In the event, despite the criminal circumstances of its arrival, the return of the painting to Italy was celebrated. Visitors flocked to the Uffizi to see it before it was returned to the Louvre.  The 31-year-old Peruggia was given only a short jail sentence and, on release, joined the Italian army to fight in the First World War.

At the end of the conflict he returned to Paris with his wife, Celestina, and a child, opening a paint shop.  He died young, on his 44th birthday.

Luino sits on the shore of Lake Maggiore
Luino sits on the shore of Lake Maggiore
Travel tip:

Peruggia’s home village of Dumenza, in the province of Varese, is situated in the pre-Alpine slopes that rise from the northern shores of Lake Maggiore, almost on the border with Switzerland. The nearest town is Luino, a popular tourist destination on the lake, which has a noteworthy weekly market and a number of fine churches, including the parish church of San Pietro in Campagna.

The courtyard between the two wings of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence
The courtyard between the two wings of
the Uffizi Gallery in Florence
Travel tip:

The Uffizi Gallery in Florence, which takes its name from its origins as a building housing the administrative offices (uffizi – nowadays uffici) of the Florentine magistrates at the time of the Medici, contains a huge collection of art works divided between 101 rooms with 13,000 square metres of exhibition space, including paintings by Cimabue, Michelangelo, Giotto, Botticelli, Titian, Caravaggio, Raphael and Rembrandt.  Da Vinci’s The Annunciation and Adoration of the Magi are among his works on display.

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7 October 2017

Rosalba Carriera - portrait painter

Venetian artist specialised in miniatures


Rosalba Carriera: shown painting her sister in a self-portrait housed at the Uffizi in Florence
Rosalba Carriera: shown painting her sister in
a self-portrait housed at the Uffizi in Florence
One of the most successful women painters in the history of art, Rosalba Carriera is thought to have been born on this day in 1675 in Venice.

A pioneer of the Rococo style, she worked in pastel colours and was best known for her portraits. Her work was so admired that at her peak she had an almost constant stream of commissions from notable visitors to Venice, and from diplomats and nobility in the courts of other countries, principally France and Austria.

Born into a middle-class background, she was able to live a relatively comfortable life, although she would outlive her family, including her two sisters, and had gone blind by the time she died, at the age of 84.

Nowadays, Carriera’s portraits are as highly sought after as they were in the 18th century, with prices in the tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds realised when examples come up for auction.

One of the finest such examples, a portrait of the Irish politician Gustavus Hamilton, who was a colonel in the regiment of William of Orange at the Battle of the Boyne, fetched £421,250 at Christie’s in 2008.

The daughter of a clerk and a lacemaker, Carriera is said to have learned lacemaking from her mother but as the lace industry declined she began decorating snuff boxes with miniature portraits, to be sold to tourists.

Carriera's portrait of Gustavus Hamilton, the Irish politician, sold for £421,250 at Christie's
Carriera's portrait of Gustavus Hamilton, the
Irish politician, sold for £421,250 at Christie's
She was one of the first miniaturists to paint on thin pieces of ivory rather than vellum.

Her talent was soon recognised, bringing her admission to the Accademia di San Luca in Rome in 1704. She moved from snuff boxes to more conventional portrait painting.

Carriera’s portraits were highly sophisticated, appealing to the refined tastes of nobility in particular, who were impressed with the way in which her attention to detail conveyed the image of wealth and luxury.

She placed her subjects almost always in a bust-length pose, with the body turned slightly away and the face looking towards the viewer, with the features accurately captured. Her ability to use her paints to create realistic representations of different textures and materials - gold braid, lace, furs – as well as jewels, hair and skin, set her apart.

Although she veered away from idealising her subjects, inevitably she presented them in a flattering light. By contrast, her self-portraits were sometimes starkly unflattering, emphasising what she considered to her poorer features, exaggerating the size of her nose, for example.  Her best-known self-portrait is one she contributed to the Medici collection of self-portraits at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, in which she portrays herself holding a portrait of her sister, Giovanna, to whom she was devoted.

Her early ‘celebrity’ subjects, whom she painted while they were visiting Venice, included Maximilian II of Bavaria and Frederick IV of Denmark.

Carriera's portrait of the young Louis XV
Carriera's portrait of the young Louis XV
August the Strong of Saxony, who was also King of Poland and sat for her in 1713, became one of her biggest patrons, inviting her to his court and acquiring more than 150 of her works.

Carriera spent between a year and 18 months in Paris, after the collector and financier Pierre Crozat had encouraged her to go.

She arrived with her family in March 1720 and became the idol of the French capital.  She painted every member of the French royal family, including the young Louis XV, and was granted honorary membership of the French Royal Academy.

After returning to Venice, where she had a home on the Grand Canal, she was invited to Vienna, where Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI became her patron.

Carriera was very close to her sisters, Angela and Giovanna, to whom she passed on her skill.  Giovanna helped her fulfil her numerous commissions in Paris, for example.

When Giovanna died in 1738, she was said to have become lonely and deeply depressed, her state of mind not helped by failing eyesight.  She underwent surgery twice in the hope of saving her sight from cataracts, but the operations were not successful.

Carriera spent the last few years of her life living in relative seclusion in a house in the Dorsoduro area of Venice.

The Ca' Biondetti on the Grand Canal was Carriera's home for many years
The Ca' Biondetti on the Grand Canal was Carriera's
home for many years
Travel tip:

Rosalba Carriera lived for many years in the Ca’ Biondetti, a private house on the Grand Canal in Venice, situated between the beautifully ornate Palazzo Mula Morosini and Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, the 18th century palace best known for being the home of the Peggy Guggenheim collection.

The magnificent Basilica of Santa Maria della Salute
The magnificent Basilica of Santa Maria della Salute
Travel tip:

Dorsoduro is the quarter of Venice just across the Grand Canal near where it emerges into the lagoon, accessed from San Marco via the Accademia Bridge. Much less crowded than San Marco, it nonetheless has much to recommend it, including the Peggy Guggenheim collection, the Gallerie dell’ Accademia and the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute, which itself houses no fewer than 12 works by Titian.  There are also a host of small bars serving a wonderful variety of the Venetian bar snacks known as cicchetti.


16 August 2017

Umberto Baldini – art restorer

Saved hundreds of artworks damaged by Arno floods


Umberto Baldini
Umberto Baldini
Umberto Baldini, the art historian who helped save hundreds of paintings, sculptures and manuscripts feared to have been damaged beyond repair in the catastrophic flooding in Florence in 1966, died on this day in 2006.

Baldini was working as director of the Gabinetto di Restauro, an office of the municipal authority in Florence charged with supervising restoration projects, when the River Arno broke its banks in the early hours of November 4, 1966.

With the ground already saturated, the combination of two days of torrential rain and storm force winds was too much and dams built to create reservoirs in the upper reaches of the Arno valley were threatened with collapse.

Consequently thousands of cubic metres of water had to be released, gathered pace as it raced downstream and eventually swept into the city at speeds of up to 40mph.

More than 100 people were killed and up to 20,000 in the valley left homeless. At its peak the depth of water in the Santa Croce area of Florence rose to 6.7 metres (22 feet). 

The Basilica di Santa Croce partially submerged under flood water
The Basilica of Santa Croce partially
submerged under flood water
Baldini was director of the conservation studios at the Uffizi, the principal art museum in Florence and one of the largest and most well known in the world, where some of the most precious and valuable treasures of the Renaissance were kept, supposedly secure and protected.

The main galleries on the second floor of the Uffizi complex, situated just off Piazza della Signoria in the heart of the city and right by the river, escaped but the water – not only muddy but full of oil after tanks in its path were ruptured – poured into storerooms, where more than 1,000 medieval and Renaissance paintings and sculptures were kept.

Once the flood subsided, it was Baldini’s task to save what he could from the mess that remained, with everything in the storerooms covered in oily mud.  Similar scenes confronted the wardens and curators of churches, libraries and museums all over Florence.

It was estimated that between three and four million books and manuscripts were damaged, as well as 14,000 works of art.

Baldini not only oversaw a painstaking restoration project at the Uffizi, he was called on to advise in similar efforts taking place across the city, with almost every church possessing priceless works by one Old Master or another.

The bespectacled academic called in experts from around the world and rapidly organised the hiring and training of hundreds of volunteers – the so-called Mud Angels – to dry, clean and restore such damaged material as could be salvaged.

Baldini examines some of the restoration work
Baldini examines some of the restoration work
Books were washed, disinfected and dried, pages often removed to be later rebound. Paintings were dried with the application of rice paper, with techniques employed in some cases to remove entire paint layers and reapply them to a new surface.

The work went on for decades after the streets had been cleaned up and Florentine life restored to normal but by the mid-1980s it was thought up to two-thirds of all the damaged items had been repaired, including high-profile casualties such as Cimabue’s wooden crucifix in the Basilica of Santa Croce.

Others took much longer. For instance, work on Giorgio Vasari’s huge panel painting of The Last Supper, also housed in the Santa Croce basilica and submerged for 12 hours, was not completed until 2016, half a century after the flood.

Much of the successful restoration was down to the work by Baldini in the immediate aftermath of the catastrophe, when he reorganized the Uffizi’s conservation facilities under a single institute and put in place formal training programmes for students of conservation to provide a steady supply of highly-skilled staff.

In 1983, Baldini was appointed director of the Istituto Centrale per il Restauro in Rome, Italy’s most prestigious conservation body, in which capacity he led the project to clean and restore the 15th- century Masaccio frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel of the Carmine Church in Florence.

Completed by Fillipino Lippi, the frescoes depict scenes from the life of St. Peter and the Book of Genesis. Baldini’s team discovered a virtually unspoiled portion of the fresco hidden behind an altar.

Born in 1921 at Pitigliano, near Grosseto in Tuscany, Baldini wrote books on the Brancacci Chapel, Masaccio and the restorations of Botticelli’s Primavera and Cimabue’s crucifix.

He died at his home in Marina di Massa, a Tuscan coastal town north of Viareggio, some 125km (78 miles) west of Florence, aged 84. His funeral took place at the church of San Giuseppe Vecchio in Marina di Massa and his body was interred at the Cemetery of the Holy Gate at the Basilica di San Miniato al Monte in Florence.

The church of San Miniato al Monte and adjoining cemetery
The church of San Miniato al Monte and adjoining cemetery
Travel tip:

San Miniato al Monte stands at one of the highest points in Florence and has been described as one of the finest examples of Romanesque architecture in Italy. Work on building the church began in 1013 at the sight of a chapel marking a cave supposedly occupied by Minas – later St. Miniato – an Armenian prince serving in the Roman army under Emperor Decius, who was denounced as a Christian after becoming a hermit. The Emperor ordered Minas to be thrown to the beasts in an amphitheatre outside Florence only for the animals to refuse to devour him, and instead had him beheaded, upon which he is alleged to have picked up his head, crossed the Arno and walked up the hill of Mons Fiorentinus to his hermitage.

Cimabue's partially restored crucifix in the  Basilica of Santa Croce
Cimabue's partially restored crucifix in the
Basilica of Santa Croce
Travel tip:

The Basilica of Santa Croce, consecrated in 1442, is the main Franciscan church in Florence and the burial place among others of Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, the poet Ugo Foscolo, the philosopher Giovanni Gentile and the composer Gioachino Rossini.  It houses works by some of the most illustrious names in the history of art, including Canova, Cimabue, Donatello, Giotto and Vasari.


25 March 2017

Francesco I - Grand Duke of Tuscany

Florentine ruler at heart of Medici murder mystery


A portrait of Francesco I by Agnolo di Cosimo, the Florentine artist better known as Bronzino
A portrait of Francesco I by Agnolo di Cosimo,
the Florentine artist better known as Bronzino.
Francesco I, the Medici Grand Duke whose death at the age of 46 became the subject of a murder mystery still unsolved 430 years later, was born on this day in 1541 in Florence.

The second to be given the title Grand Duke of Tuscany, Francesco was the son of Cosimo I de' Medici, the first to hold the title, and Eleonor of Toledo.

Like his father, Francesco was often a despotic leader, but while Cosimo's purpose was to maintain Florence's independence, Francesco's loyalties were not so clear. He taxed his subjects heavily but diverted large sums to the empires of Austria and Spain.

He continued his father's patronage of the arts, supporting artists and building the Medici Theatre as well as founding the Accademia della Crusca and the Uffizi Gallery. He was also interested in chemistry and alchemy and spent many hours in his private laboratory.

It was his personal life that he is remembered for, beginning with an unhappy marriage to Joanna of Austria, youngest daughter of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor and Anne of Bohemia and Hungary.  Joanna was reportedly homesick for her native Austria, and Francesco was unfaithful from the start. Joanna died in 1578, at the age of 31.

Soon after Joanna's death, Francesco married his Venetian mistress, Bianca Cappello, who had already borne him a son, Antonio. Because of the quick remarriage following Joanna's sudden death, rumours spread that Francesco and Bianca had poisoned her, the atmosphere of suspicion not helped by reports that Francesco's younger brother Pietro had extricated himself from a similarly unhappy marriage by killing his wife.

Bianca Capello, as portrayed by the artist Allori
 Alessandro in a portrait now in the Pitti Palace
Francesco was besotted with Bianca, for whom he built and decorated the Villa di Pratolino in Vaglia, 12km north of Florence on the way to Bologna. But she was not popular among Florentines.

They had no legitimate children, but after the death of Francesco's legitimate son Philip de' Medici, Antonio was proclaimed heir.

The two died 12 hours apart in October, 1587, at the Medici family villa in Poggio a Caiano.  The death certificates stated malaria as the cause, but it has been widely speculated since that the couple was poisoned, possibly by Francesco's brother, Ferdinando, who feared being excluded from the line of succession after Francesco announced Antonio as his heir.

Ferdinando had visited the couple at the villa shortly before they fell ill and when he heard of their plight returned immediately, taking charge of bulletins sent to the Holy See, which allegedly blamed his brother's illness on his poor eating habits and Bianca's on worry about her husband's condition.

Ferdinando also ordered the autopsies on the bodies, which led to the conclusion that malaria was to blame.

It was when the bodies were exhumed, two and a half centuries later in 1857, in order to be reburied in the basement of the Medici Chapel in San Lorenzo that reports of unusually well preserved bodies gave rise to theories that they were poisoned with arsenic, which slows down the putrefaction process.

The bodies were exhumed again in 2005 by a team from the Universities of Florence and Pisa, following which the parasite plasmodium falciparum, which causes malaria, was found in the skeletal remains of Francesco I, bolstering the credibility of the official documents.  Analysis of Francesco's facial hair detected low levels of arsenic, which seemed to rule out chronic exposure to the substance.

The Basilica di San Lorenzo in Florence, to which are attached the Medici family chapels
The Basilica di San Lorenzo in Florence, to which are
attached the Medici family chapels
When Bianca's remains were found in some broken terracotta jars buried under the crypt in the Church of Santa Maria a Bonistallo, near Francesco's villa, however, testing supported the theory of arsenic poisoning. The same findings were detected in organs from Francesco.

This suggested Francesco and Bianca were given small doses of arsenic for several days until it killed them, the doses too small and administered over a too short period of time to be detected in Francesco's facial hair.  The symptoms, such as fever, stomach-cramps and vomiting, could have been misinterpreted as an infection.

However, Gino Fornaciari, professor of forensic anthropology and director of the Pathology Museum at the University of Pisa, said that it was much more likely that malaria was the cause of death.

Travel tip:

Bunelleschi's Basilica of San Lorenzo in Florence is the site of two Medici Chapels, dating from the 16th and 17th centuries. The Sagrestia Nuova, (New Sacristy), was designed by Michelangelo. The larger Cappella dei Principi, (Chapel of the Princes), though proposed in the 16th century, was not begun until the early 17th century.  The octagonal Cappella dei Principi, commissioned by Ferdinand I and notable for its 59m (194ft) dome, is the distinguishing feature of the Basilica when seen from a distance.

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The beautiful Villa Medici at Poggio a Caiano
The beautiful Villa Medici at Poggio a Caiano
Travel tip:

The Villa Medici at Poggio a Caiano is one of the most famous Medici villas, located about 9km (six miles) south of Prato. Today it is a public building comprising the historic apartments where the Medici stayed and a museum. The villa is perhaps the best example of architecture commissioned by Lorenzo the Magnificent, in this case designed by Giuliano da Sangallo in around 1480.


More reading:


Cosimo de' Medici - the banker who founded the Medici dynasty

Gian Gastone - the last Medici to rule Florence

Why Cosimo II gave his support to Galileo

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12 July 2016

Amedeo Modigliani – artist

Illness marred the life of creative genius 



Amedeo Modigliani: A photograph taken in  about 1918, when the artist was 34 years old
Amedeo Modigliani: A photograph taken in
 about 1918, when the artist was 34 years old
Painter and sculptor Amedeo Clemente Modigliani was born on this day in 1884 in Livorno in Tuscany.

The artist went on to become famous for his portraits and his paintings of nudes, which were characterised by their elongated faces and figures.

Modigliani did not receive much acclaim during his lifetime, but after his death his work became popular and achieved high prices.

He was born into a Jewish family and suffered health problems as a child, but began drawing and painting from an early age and begged his family to take him to see the paintings in the Uffizi in Florence.

His mother enrolled him at the art school of Guglielmo Micheli in Livorno where he received artistic instruction influenced by the style and themes of 19th century Italian art.

In 1902 Modigliani enrolled in the school of nude studies at the Accademia di Belle Art in Florence and then moved on to Venice to continue his studies.


Modigliani's portrait of his lover, Jeanne Hébuterne
Modigliani's portrait of his lover,
Jeanne Hébuterne
In 1906 he moved to Paris, where he set up a studio with Jacob Epstein.

He lived with a beautiful young French art student, Jeanne Hébuterne, from 1917 until he became ill with tuberculosis and died in 1920, at the age of just 35. She threw herself out of a window the day after his death, killing herself and her unborn child.  The two are buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris.

Travel tip:

Livorno, where Modigliani was born, is a port on the western coast of Tuscany, which deals with thousands of cruise ship passengers each day.  The city used to be known as Leghorn in English and there is an English cemetery in Via Giuseppe Verdi, which houses the graves of many former British residents, including the novelist, Tobias Smollett.

Travel tip:

The Uffizi in Florence, where Modigliani asked to be taken as a child, is one of the oldest and most famous art galleries in the world and houses a wealth of Renaissance art treasures. Located in Piazzale degli Uffizi close to Piazza della Signoria and the famous Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, it was originally built as a suite of offices in 1560, but later became used by the Medici family to display their art treasures. For more information, visit www.uffizi.org


More reading:


Giorgio Vasari - art's first historian

The merchant's wife immortalised as the Mona Lisa

The wonderful legacy of Tintoretto


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24 May 2016

Gian Gastone de' Medici – Grand Duke of Tuscany

The last Medici to rule Florence


Portrait of Gian Gastone de' Medici
A portrait of Gian Gastone de' Medici,
the last in a line of Florentine rulers
Gian Gastone de' Medici, the seventh and last Grand Duke of Tuscany, was born on this day in 1671 in the Pitti Palace in Florence.

He was the second son of Grand Duke Cosimo III and Marguerite Louise d’Orleans.

Because his elder brother predeceased him he succeeded his father to the title in 1723.

He had an unhappy arranged marriage and the couple had no children so when he died in 1737 it was the end of 300 years of Medici rule over Florence.

He spent the last few years of his reign confined to bed, looked after by his entourage.

One of his final acts was to order the erection of a statue to Galileo in the Basilica of Santa Croce.

He was buried in the Basilica of San Lorenzo and Francis Stephen of Lorraine succeeded to the title of Grand Duke of Tuscany.

Travel tip:

The Palazzo Pitti, known in English as the Pitti Palace, is on the south side of the River Arno, a short distance from the Ponte Vecchio. It became the main residence of the rulers of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and is now the largest museum complex in Florence.

Photo of the Museo Galileo
The Museo Galileo in Piazza dei Giudici houses one of the
world's biggest collections of scientific instruments
Travel tip:


There is a museum dedicated to Galileo in Florence, the Museo Galileo in Piazza dei Giudici close to the Uffizi Gallery. It houses one of the biggest collections of scientific instruments in the world in Palazzo Castellani, an 11th century building. The museum is open Mondays to Sundays from 9.30 to 18.00, closing at 13.00 on Tuesdays.

(Photo of the museum courtesy of Museo Galileo CC BY-SA 3.0)