Free publication on www.friendsoftheuffizigallery.org Polistampa - Firenze JOURNAL OF THE FRIENDS OF THE UFFIZI GALLERY No. 79 - December 2020 The Uffizi Galleries Celebrate Dante Exhibitions, loans and initiatives to commemorate the seventh centenary of the death of the Great Poet in 2021 reparations are feverishly underway for the P2021 national celebration of the seventh centenary of the death of Dante Alighieri. This is the fourth celebration of Dante in the history of Italy. The first was in 1865, for the 600-year commemoration of his birth. The newly born Italian state thus celebrated, also on the basis of the common language promoted by the Great Poet, national unity that was still in the making with Florence declared as capital on February 3 of that same year. This first Dantesque anniversary left to Florence the monumental statue of the poet by Enrico Pazzi from Ravenna, inaugurated in Piazza Santa Croce on May 14 by King Vittorio Emanuele II. In 1921, for the sixth centenary of Dante’s death, the nation, which was then just emerging from the sufferings of the First World War, once again united around the figure of Dante. With a patriotic spirit no less heartfelt than that of the preceding celebration, com- memorative expositions also took place in Rome as well as Modena where an exhibition was held at the Estense Library. In 1965, the celebrations were even more numerous with a grand national exhibit in Rome, and others in Ravenna, Verona, Perugia, and, of course, Florence. The Florentine “Exhibition of Codices and Editions of Dante”, at the National Central Library, was followed the next year by the small “Exhibition of Dantesque Codices” at the Medicean Laurentian Library, which in 1921 had been the seat of the Florentine “Dantesque Exhibition”. As can be seen in this excursus, until now the Uffizi Galleries have never been involved in the Eike D. Schmidt (continued on page 2) Andrea del Castagno, Portrait of Dante, fresco detached in 1847 as part of the cycle of “Illustrious Men and Women” from the villa Carducci at Legnaia, Uffizi Galleries. IL GIORNALE degli UFFIZI 1 the territory and the city of Flor- 88 illustrations of the Divine ence itself. It will be a Dantesque Comedy by Federico Zuccari will symphony involving numerous be made accessible for the first institutions and locations. time in high definition online, In fact, the Uffizi Galleries providing the public with an have partnered with the Museums instrument for study and re- of San Domenico in Forlì – one of search during the Dantesque Alighieri’s stops during his years year. And on March 25, Dantedì of exile – to create the biggest (Dante Day), the first Lectura exhibit ever seen, dedicated to Dantis at the Uffizi will take the impact the Great Poet had place. Professor Paolo Procac- on the visual arts over the course cioli will inaugurate this new of the last seven hundred years, series, also broadcast in stream- with a selection of works that no ing on our Facebook page, with single institution could have ob- a lecture on the subject for which tained. To involve as many “places he is celebrated as a maximum of Dante” as possible in 2021, we authority, that is, Florentine Re- will loan paintings to Ravenna, to naissance Commentaries on the Castagno d’Andrea, to Poppi, to Divine Comedy. Among other Rome, and naturally to Florence initiatives, the Uffizi will host with, in particular, contributions what is perhaps the most original to the exhibit on Dante and the and surely the most current ex- nineteenth century to be held at hibit, a grand display of works the Bargello. Continuing our fruit- dedicated to Dante by the great ful collaboration with the Galileo contemporary artist from Turin, Museum, successfully begun in Giuseppe Penone. The showing 2019 in the name of Leonardo also includes creations Penone with the exhibit on the entire made expressly for the Dan- Cristofano dell’Altissimo, Portrait of Dante, painted for the series dedicated to Illustrious Codex Leicester, we have once tesque seventh centenary, as well Men, commissioned by Cosimo I de’ Medici, Uffizi Galleries, Gallery of Statues and again united our forces to orga- as others from his most recent Paintings. nize the first exposition of all time production, inspired by the “al- on Dante and Science, a theme bero che vive de la cima” (the commemorative celebrations for well beyond the commemorative particularly dear to Dantesque tree that draws its sustenance Alighieri, despite the fact that the year to which, nonetheless, we scholars during the Renaissance. from above), mentioned in museums harbor an extraordinary will dedicate all due solemnity, But our efforts do not stop Paradiso (XVIII, v. 29). collection of works related to the and, with an unedited approach, there. From the Uffizi Depart- poet. For this reason, we began, “create a network” throughout ment of Prints and Drawings, Eike D. Schmidt some time ago, studies and prepa- rations for a series of initiatives for the 2021 centenary. Already last year, the frescoed Portrait of Dante, from the cycle of “Illustrious Men and Women” by Andrea del Castagno, was transferred to the Opificio delle Pietre Dure for res- toration, the first in over a century. This work, detached together with the entire cycle from the walls of villa Carducci at Legnaia in 1847, is perhaps the most famous and surely the most penetrating life- size image of the poet. Like an an- cient statue, the full-length figure stands erect, flanked, in a towering triad, by the images of Petrarch and Boccaccio. The restoration of Andrea del Castagno’s Dante, financed by the Friends of the Uffizi Gallery, is just the first step in a project programmed over the next few years that will involve all of the figures in the series. Once complete, the entire cycle will be put on public display within the Uffizi. Thus, we have created the opportunity to extend our efforts Giovanni Mochi, Dante Alighieri presenting Giotto to Guido da Polenta, Uffizi Galleries, Palazzo Pitti, Gallery of Modern Art. 2 IL GIORNALE degli UFFIZI Rediscovering San Pier Scheraggio The restoration of the San Pier Scheraggio was built a transparent glass pavement, the his brown habit, tied at the waist remnants of the Romanesque in the eleventh century, contem- remains of the church brought with a rope, and the signs of the church Vasari incorporated porary and twin to San Miniato al to light during the archeological stigmata on his hands. When the Monte, similar in the division of excavations carried out by the Su- Uffizi was constructed in the XVI into the building of the Uffizi the naves and the raised presbytery. perintendence of Archeology, Fine century and the church reduced Etymologically, the term apparently Arts and Landscape: the original to the central nave alone, the col- he recovery of the third nave derives from an adjacent stream cocciopesto (amalgam of terracotta umns were incorporated into the T(side nave) of the church of that served for the “schiaraggio” fragments and lime) pavement brickwork of the divisionary walls. San Pier Scheraggio is the latest (whitening) of cloth, given the nu- of the Romanesque church; the In order to make the contem- in a series of interventions pro- merous “fulloniche”, factories for polychrome mural paintings imi- porary interventions distinct and grammed by the executive man- the washing of cloth, in the area. tating curtains of draping cloth, evident, only modern materials, agement of the Galleries (others The church pre-existed Palazzo della proof that the walls of Romanesque such as glass and iron, were ad- underway include: the new halls Signoria and, also for this reason, the churches were multicolored (in opted in the reconstruction pro- for sixteenth century painting on opposite side-nave to the north of contradiction to the stereotyped cess. Particular care was given to the second floor of the east wing; the building was demolished in the idea of a Middle Age built totally out lighting, with the light sources il- the public restrooms midway down fifteenth century, to create a wider of stone); the ancient passageway luminating the rediscovered parts the steps leading from the Gallery space between the church and the that once led from the church to the of the building hidden beneath to the second floor; and the resto- Palace (now via della Ninna). cloistered cemetery; the fifteenth the pavement. For the overall il- ration of the Hall of Geographic In Medieval times, San Pier century pavement of rectangular lumination of the chamber, in the Maps). Having finally brought to Scheraggio additionally served a civ- terracotta tiles laid in a “herring will to conserve the 1940s pavilion light the Romanesque church, and ic function as the meeting place for bone” pattern; and the eighteenth ceiling (Architect Engineer Lando unveiled its suggestive stratigraphy the Priors of the Florentine Repub- century brick vaults. Other paint- Bartoli, 1914-2002), the lights have (this was the proposal and aspira- lic. In fact, the Prior Dante Alighieri ings, dating to the XIV century, are been reinserted into the positions tion of the lamented archeologist, spoke there in 1300. After Vasari visible on the columns that once originally planned. Analogously, Riccardo Francovich, 1946-2007), incorporated the church within divided the side nave of the Roman- the wooden lined elevator cabins, visitors now have the opportunity the Uffizi, religious rites continued esque church from its wider central styled in the same period, have to explore the pre-existent area until it was deconsecrated during nave. These were decorated with been accordingly maintained and of the city’s historic center as it the period of the Lorraine.