HERCULES RESTITUTED Restoration of the Sculpture Group Hercules and Nessus Has Been Concluded, Thanks to the Generous Involvement of the Friends of the Uffizi Gallery

Issue no. 21 - April 2015

HERCULES RESTITUTED Restoration of the sculpture group Hercules and Nessus has been concluded, thanks to the generous involvement of the Friends of the Uffizi Gallery. The project bears eloquent testimony to the superb skill of sculptor Giovanni Caccini in restoring shape and meaning to an ancient fragment.

In the late 1500’s, Italian sculptor Giovanni Caccini, talented pupil of Giambologna, completed his recreation of the Hercules and Nessus marble group, since then the undisputed visual focus of the first corridor of the Gallery.

Caccini’s sculpture was recreated from antique fragmentary remains, recomposed by a Maestro Silla, of an acephalous centaur with partial legs, a man’s feet, and part of an arm on the centaur’s shoulders, suggesting two figures engaged in a fight. 16th century scholars recognized Hercules in the human figure for the presence of a quiver, as in mythology the hero used arrows only against monstrous swamp birds and against Nessus, the centaur that offered to help get Hercules’s wife Deianira across a swollen river, and then tried to abduct her. To stop the centaur’s flight Hercules shot an arrow from the opposite bank and then finished him off.

Having the subject well in mind, Caccini met the challenge of grafting a completely new figure on the existing parts, admirably integrating, besides the statue of Hercules, the upper part of the centaur, its arms and part of its legs.

Now this great work of art has been artfully restored by Paola Rosa, who restituted to the statue its original splendor, thanks to the significant generosity of the Friends of the Uffizi Gallery association, that has supported the museum’s restoration of ancient sculptures for the last ten years. The marble group can justifiably be considered, according to the felicitous idea of Antonio Natali, as representing the Gallery’s true manifesto. For the sculpture, more than half of which was the fruit of Giovanni Caccini’s chisel, embodies to the highest degree the idea of harmonious and beneficial fusion of classic and contemporary (as this sculptor’s art was regarded by Francesco I and Ferdinand) that was the cornerstone of the Florentine Gallery itself.

An abridgement of the article "L'Ercole restituito" by Fabrizio Paolucci - Il Giornale degli Uffizi no. 62, April, 2015.

Issue no. 21 - April 2015

THE AGE OF FRANCESCO

A selection of art works inspired by the cultural interests of Grand Duke Francesco I, gives a special ambiance to room 38, renewed thanks to the generous contribution of the Amici degli Uffizi.

The renovated room 38 of the Uffizi Gallery was chosen to accommodate the huge painting of the Allegory by Jacopo Ligozzi, an addition to the Gallery’s collections thanks to the generous donation of Jean-Luc Baroni. The hall is also named Room of the Hermaphrodite after the very famous ancient marble, an imperial-age Roman copy of a second-century-BC Hellenistic original, which is placed in front of the new painting and is the visual focus of the selection of artworks inspired to Francesco’s artistic tastes and preferences in the late 16th century.

The complete renovation of the room – painted the same crimson red as the Tribune and the renewed rooms dedicated to 16th century painting – could not have been possible without the generous contribution of the Amici degli Uffizi, that once again promptly responded to the needs of the Gallery.

An abridgement of the article "L'eta' di Francesco" by Francesca de Luca - Il Giornale degli Uffizi no. 62, April, 2015.

Issue no. 21 - April 2015

ORIGINAL, ECCENTRIC, BIZZARE

An exhibit at the Uffizi and at the National Gallery of Washington DC provides a vast representation of the little-known oeuvre of Piero di Cosimo, extraordinary maestro of Renaissance Florence.

Piero di Cosimo, eccentric genius in the foremost ranks of the Florentine Renaissance, a figure that has intrigued critics over the last two centuries, is all but unknown to the museum-going public, and still holds a marginal position within the study of art history. Recent critical contributions made an exhibit dedicated to this artist a necessity strongly felt by many, so much so that the National Gallery in Washington and the Galleria degli Uffizi decided to combine their efforts in mounting an impressive exhibit focusing for the first time on Piero di Cosimo,

The exhibition, with exceptional mutual loans to offer a display of Piero di Cosimo’s artistic production as complete as possible, premiered at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, from February 1 through May 3, 2015, and will be on view at the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence from June 23 through September 27, 2015, with the title Piero di Cosimo (1462–1522): Pittore fiorentino "eccentrico" fra Rinascimento e Maniera.

An abridgement of the article "Originale, eccentrico, bizzarro" by Serena Padovani - Il Giornale degli Uffizi no. 62, April, 2015. Issue no. 21 - April 2015

UFFIZI WIFI A project of the Amici

Thanks to an initiative of the Amici degli Uffizi, beginning in May visitors to the Galleria will be able to access the Web via WiFi, and will thus enjoy a wide range of information pertaining to opening times, itineraries, exhibits, works on display or under restoration.

For some time it had been felt necessary to provide visitors to the Uffizi with a means of easily accessing information during their visit. Beginning in May 2015, a WiFi web portal made available by the Amici degli Uffizi and integrated with the Galleria’s own official website, will allow those who have a multimedia device to access via WiFi digital content about the museum.

Visitors with mobile devices such as iPhone, Android, and Blackberry will be able to download a multimedia guide that will accompany them through the Galleria’s rooms, providing information (regarding the museum opening times, notices, regulations, events, exhibits, and much more), orientation assistance (user-friendly layout maps of museum sections, precise real-time location of the visitor), and, in particular, information on works not on display, on loan, and under restoration, plus videos produced by the Galleria, including a 3D video of the Tribuna.

Providing Galleria visitors with a pleasurable experience is one of the aspects of the cultural mission of the Associazione Amici degli Uffizi. This new initiative, with its cost of some 160,000 euros, goes to join the restoration projects, exhibits, acquisitions, and all the other activities that the Association has sponsored for over twenty years to support the Galleria. This latest, quite unique program now allows the Amici to transform a cultural jewel into a true social space.

An abridgement of the article "Uffizi WiFi - Un progetto degli Amici" by Emanuele Guerra - Il Giornale degli Uffizi no. 62, April, 2015.

Issue no. 21 – April 2015

A NEW ACHIEVEMENT FOR THE NEW UFFIZI

Halls 2 to 7 reopen after refurbishment and outfitting works. Exhibited in the “Primitives Rooms” also fifteen artworks previously located in storage deposits.

The newly restored Rooms of the Primitives – displaying paintings from the 14th Century to the international Gothic - reopened last April after almost one year’s works. As a part of the ongoing renovation project of the Nuovi Uffizi, the halls have been fitted with new lighting and security systems and a state-of-the art climate-controlled environment. Centered around masterpieces such as the three Maestà by Cimabue, Giotto e Duccio in room 2, and the Coronation of the Virgin by Lorenzo Monaco in room 5-6, the redesigned placement of the art allows for more “breathing space” between each work and has allowed for fifteen paintings coming from different deposits to be added to the display.

An abridgement of the article "Nuovo traguardo per i Nuovi Uffizi" by Daniela Parenti - Il Giornale degli Uffizi no. 62, April, 2015.

Issue no. 21 - April 2015

LIFE AT THE UFFIZI

THE UFFIZI IN GUAM More than 5,000 visitors, most of them students, was the success garnered in Guam (one of the USA-administered Mariana Islands), by an original cultural event organized by Florentine Roberto Fracassini, Honorary Consul of Italy for Guam, together with Rotary International in collaboration with Japanese manufacturer Hitachi, and funded through donations. From August 10 to September 27, 2014 the project “Uffizi Virtual Museum – Guam Exhibit”, subtitled "Use the power of culture to open young minds to knowledge” showed ten life-size replicas of works by some of the major Italian Renaissance painters (Botticelli, Leonardo, Michelangelo), two touch-screen navigation monitors and a digital theater. With this exhibit, supported by the Italian General Consulate of San Francisco and by the Italian Embassies in Tokyo and Washington, Roberto Fracassini meant to promote Italian culture in the Far East and other projects are currently under study.