The famous Doni Tondo by Michelangelo Buonarroti at the center of a huge ‘porthole’ wall, and the Madonna of the Goldfinch by Raffaello Sanzio (Raphael); these are the ‘art superstar’ protagonists of the new room dedicated to the two great artists on the second floor of the Uffizi.
In the same space, with soft gray walls to enhance the vivid colors of the works, other masterpieces by Raphael stand out: the portraits of Guidobaldo da Montefeltro and Elisabetta Gonzaga, those of Angelo and Maddalena Doni, and the San Giovannino. Then there are also three paintings by Fra Bartolomeo – The Vision of St. Bernard, Porzia, and the small diptych Annunciation – and a marble Hellenistic head, the Dying Alexander, very famous in the Renaissance.
Uffizi Director Eike Schmidt said that they are “real bombs in the history of art that we removed from corners of the gallery where, for various reasons, they did not have the visibility they deserved. Together in this way, with their incredible expressive power, they can symbolize and celebrate the glory of the first decade of the 1500s. At that time Florence was the artistic, cultural, and scientific capital of the whole world: in practice, at the same time the Soho, the Montmartre, and the Silicon Valley of the ‘West of the time’.”
On July 9th, in front of this room of the stars to open this “stars room”, will also open a new room dedicated to Leonardo da Vinci, which will house The Adoration of the Magi, the Annunciation and The Baptism of Christ. Schmidt explained that “the general objective of this ‘RisiKo’ is to recreate, thanks to the combinations made, the magical moment of the Renaissance, in the very early part of the ‘500, when Leonardo, Raffaello, and Michelangelo were all together with Florence.”
Ilona Catani Scarlett