Florence's new Museo de' Medici opens its first exhibition

Last June on Via dei Servi in Florence, between the Cathedral and the Basilica of Santissima Annunziata, the new Museo de’ Medici opened.

From November 26, 2019, to March 24, 2020, the museum will offer its first exhibition entitled Cosimo I. Dusts of a Great Fresco, curated by Alberto Bruschi, antiquarian and expert on the Medici family. Objects and works from private collections will be on display: about fifteen pieces including paintings, relics, manuscripts, medals, printed books, and various objects celebrating the figure of Cosimo I on the 500th anniversary of his birth.

Among the most significant works on display will be Jacopo Ligozzi ’s preparatory sketch-painting for the blackboard painting in the Salone dei Cinquecento in Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio, entitled Boniface VIII Receives Florentine Ambassadors, which the artist finished in 1592 and whose drawing is now preserved in the Uffizi Drawings and Prints Cabinet. There will also be a Portrait of Cosimo I attributed toAllori and two relics of Pius V, namely the Glove of St. Pius V’s right hand with which he blessed the troops at the Battle of Lepanto and given to Marcantonio Colonna, and a Pantofola, which Cosimo had to kiss on the day of his Coronation as Grand Duke. Also, two manuscripts: Provanze de Quarti di tutti i Cavalieri di S. Stefano Fiorentini dalla Fondazione della Religione sino a’oggi - All extracted from Libri della Cancelleria di Pisa e Origine, e Descendenza della Real Casa de Medici, and the score Per le Cantore - Cavalieri di S. Stefano, a number of printed books and four medals from the eighteenth-century Medici series by Antonio Selvi depicting Cosimo I, Eleonora di Toledo, Camilla Martelli and the Don Fagoro (actually Don Pedricco, son of the Grand Duke and Eleonora, who died at less than a year of age, but depicted by the engraver as a youth of at least fifteen years with armor). Also exhibited are twenty lithographs on canvas of the Grand Dukes and consorts of the 17th and 18th centuries, a lead to hold the stirrup of an architectural element with the Medici coat of arms, the embroidery of the lost fresco of Porta Romana Bando of the end of the Florentine Republic, and a plaque bearing the Law above the Dressing, Ornaments, & other Pumps of the Men, & Women of the City, & County of Fiorenza of 1568.

Combining real and virtual elements, the Museo de’ Medici, created by the startup conceived by Samuele Lastrucci, a young conductor who is passionate about the famous Florentine dynasty, aims to tell the story of the Medici through thematic rooms, temporary exhibitions, events, a specialized bookstore, meetings, editorial presentations and lectures. In addition to the virtual painting gallery, the new museum venue preserves a valuable collection of original coins from the 15th to the 18th century, engraved portraits of the Grand Dukes, and Giovanni Battista Foggini ’s sculpture of Ferdinand II; it also offers theinteractive installation thanks to which it is possible to listen to the music that the Medici listened to. In the treasure room, on the other hand, the now-lost Grand Ducal crown has been reconstructed in 3D.

For info: www.museodemedici.com

Hours: Daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Tickets: Full 9 euros, reduced 5 euros

Florence's new Museo de' Medici opens its first exhibition

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