In June we spent a week in a villa near Florence, so a visit to the Uffizi was obligatory, of course. I hired Paolo Russo https://www.florenceprivateguide.com/ as our guide and he was terrific. We opted for the two and a half hour highlights tour, and I let him know that I would be interested to see anything that had a connection to the Valois kings of France. He customised our tour extremely well and we had a great time. We had very much wanted to experience the Vasari Corridor too, but it has been closed for restoration for some years and there is still no real indication of when it will reopen. Nevertheless it was such a privilege to see all these superb works of art, many of which I was familiar with from books and documentaries, and we felt very lucky to have Paolo as our guide.
Roman sculpture of a Molossian hound, a type of flock protection dog or heavy hunting hound.
Detail of an angel from the Virgin and Child Enthroned surrounded by angels (aka the Rucellai Madonna) by Duccio di Buoninsegna from Siena, commissioned 1285 by a group dedicated to worshipping the Virgin in a nearby Florentine church. Paolo pointed out the disembodied fingers gripping the base of the throne. Tempera on wood, with lots of gold. The artist was probably a colleague of Cimabue. The painting is Byzantine in tradition, but with elements of Gothic naturalism in the draping and shading. In the 16th century the Rucellai family owned the painting.
Annunciation with Saint Margaret and Saint Ansanus by the Sienese artist Simone Martini, thought to be a pupil of Duccio, who ended his days in Avignon in 1344. We were vastly amused by the Madonna's facial expression. She is clearly thinking 'Seriously!? What a load of nonsense. And in any case, frankly, I had other plans...' Paolo pointed out that artists depicting the Annunciation had a choice of three emotions that they could show Mary exhibiting -- surprise, doubt, and humble acceptance, all demonstrated by how her hands were portrayed. In this painting she is somewhere between doubt and acceptance, despite the expression on her face -- the hands show the real message. Tempera on wood with a gold background.
Spring (Primavera) by Sandro Botticelli, easily in the top ten of 'must sees' in the Uffizi. Tempera grassa on poplar wood, c1480. The meaning of this painting has never been fully deciphered, but Paolo pointed out that it is full of political allegory, referring to a regime change. It is remarkable for the 138 species of wild flowers in the grass, all identifiable by botanists. It was owned by a member of the Medici family, and the oranges may represent the golden balls which where the Medici emblem. The whole Spring setting no doubt refers to 'rebirth' and Mercury, on the left, is pushing away a dark cloud with his staff.
Annunciation by Leonardo da Vinci, oil on wood, c1472. In this case the Madonna is expressing surprise, with her raised hand, rather than as in the Martini painting above, with the hand nervously clutching the clothing at her breast. I'm amused that in both cases she is determinedly keeping a finger marking her place in the book she's been interrupted reading. The setting is naturalistic and may be a real place. Paolo believes he has seen the place, once, on a chance visit to a monastery not normally open to the public.
The imprint on a staircase ceiling of a window blasted inwards in a terrorist attack in 1993. The Sicilian Mafia packed a Fiat full of explosives and blew it up in the street outside the Uffizi after the boss of the Corleonesi clan was arrested. The Nencioni family, including a baby, were killed, along with an architecture student, and forty-eight people injured. Three paintings were badly damaged, the Pulci Tower was destroyed, and the library of the Accademia dei Georgofili, an agronomy institute, was damaged.
Cosimo I de Medici, Duke of Florence, in armour, by Agnolo Bronzino, 1545, oil on wood. Bronzino was Duke Cosimo's court portraitist for most of his career and excelled at giving his subjects a sort of cold assurance, much admired at the time. The Uffizi has a small corridor gallery dedicated to his work, and I'm a big fan. Cosimo was born the same year as his cousin Catherine (who would go on to become Queen of France), but he came from a different branch of the family. Nevertheless, he found himself Duke of Florence at the age of 17, and later, Grand Duke of Tuscany. He did not grow up in Florence, but on the Medici's ancestral lands. However, he proved himself an astute and capable Duke right from the start. It is Cosimo who is responsible for the building of the Uffizi (which means 'offices', and was the administrative hub of Florence). He married Eleanor of Toledo and they formed a formidible and faithful couple at the head of Florence for more than 20 years until she died from malaria.
This painting by Giorgio Vasari highlights the importance of drawing and design. A goddess hands a piece of paper with a drawing on it to a craftsman. He is then able to make her commission because of the drawing. The message is that you can make anything, so long as there are people skilled enough to draw the concept first. Vasari was instrumental in setting up the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno ("Academy of the Arts of Drawing").
On the right, a portrait of Bia de Medici, the illegitimate daughter of Cosimo I de Medici and an unknown Florentine noblewoman, by Bronzino, oil on panel, sometime between 1542 and 1545. The child, born before he married, was raised in the household of Cosimo, his wife Eleanor and his mother (Bia's grandmother) Maria Salviati. It's clear that everyone was very fond of her, but she died at the age of five in 1542. The boy on the left is Francesco, one of Cosimo and Eleanor's sons, also by Bronzino, from c1551.
Federico Ubaldo della Rovere as a swaddled baby born in 1605, by Alessandro Vitali. Federico was a member of the Medici family and became the Duke of Urbino at the age of 16. He was probably poisoned by his families enemies and died at 18 years old.
Like the version in Loches of the Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Caravaggio, this painting in the Uffizi is considered to be a copy. There are several versions of this painting, two of which have been signed by Caravaggio -- one in Potsdam on display at Sansouci and one in private hands known as the Trieste version. Research published last year on the Trieste version has shown that it appears to be the original, full of pentimento, and possibly commissioned as part of a Counter-Reformation trio (The Taking of Christ and the Supper at Emmaus being the other two) by the Mattei family. Curiously though, there is evidence showing that this is the painting that Philippe de Bethune bought from the artist and owned in the early 17th century. It was confiscated from the Chateau de Selles sur Cher during the Revolution then makes its way somehow to the collection of the Tsar of Russia, but kept at the Russian Embassy in Rome. Once again Revolution dictates its fate and it was sold at auction to a banker in Trieste in 1918. It was sold again in 2019 and remains in a private collection. Where that leaves the Loches version I don't know, except that it does confirm the official opinion that it is a copy, albeit contemporary with the original, and possibly even from the Caravaggio 'factory' (ahem...I mean workshop) itself.
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