Florence, three Orsanmichele masterpieces move temporarily to Bargello

Three masterpieces from the Orsanmichele Museum are being moved a few hundred meters in order to allow the public to continue admiring them during the closure of the monumental complex for work that began last December and is scheduled to end on Sept. 22. Thus, from April 5 to Sept. 4, 2023, the National Museum of the Bargello will host on display Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Saint John the Baptist, Andrea del Verrocchio ’sIncredulity of Saint Thomas and Giambologna’s Saint Luke, three of the greatest masterpieces of Renaissance bronze statuary from the Orsanmichele Museum. The exhibition aims to offer the public an opportunity to admire the display of three works from Orsanmichele’s famous sculptural cycle, transferred to the ancient site of the Palazzo del Podestà during the extraordinary restoration, securing, refurbishment and access improvement works involving Orsanmichele, directed by Tommaso Barni and made possible thanks to the extraordinary funding related to the GPBC (Great Projects Cultural Heritage) Strategic Plan of the Ministry of Culture.

Known as the ancient loggia for market and grain storage, the Orsanmichele Complex is one of Florence’s most important public monuments, and is part of the Bargello Museums. The second floor of the 14th-century building has since the mid-1990s been home to the original marble and bronze statues depicting the patron saints of the Florentine Arts, which were progressively removed from the exterior tabernacles and replaced by copies. The works selected for the temporary exhibition at the Bargello all come from the aediculae located on the eastern facade of Via de’ Calzaiuoli: Ghiberti’s St. John the Baptist (1413-1416), the first monumental statue of the Renaissance, comes from the tabernacle of the Arte di Calimala, while Giambologna’s St. Luke (1602) was commissioned by the Arte dei Giudici e dei Notai. The Flemish sculptor’s work stands out for its great expressive power and, unlike the other two bronzes, had never had any other occasion until now to leave the Orsanmichele Palace, except for the necessary securing during World War II and the 2001 restoration. Finally, the Verrocchio group of theIncredulity (1467-1483), scenographically set up in the exhibition within a raised niche at a height close to that of the original tabernacle, represents the University of Merchandise.

“This small exhibition focused on three large bronze masterpieces aims not only to make visible some of the most important statues of the Renaissance, which mark fundamental passages of the Florentine Renaissance, during the extraordinary works planned for this year’year at Orsanmichele,” said Paola D’Agostino, director of the Bargello Museums, “but also to link more closely the collections of the Bargello Museums, which are unique in showing the domain of Florentine bronze statuary from the 15th to the early 17th century. I thank Benedetta Matucci for curating the exhibition, enriching it also with so much visual and documentary data that give an account of the singular history of Orsanmichele statues from the Renaissance to the present.”

“Orsamichele is a key monument in Florentine artistic history, and its tabernacles have for centuries housed some of the most relevant masterpieces of Renaissance sculpture, now preserved at the museum,” said Benedetta Matucci art historian official, head of the Orsnamichele complex and the Palazzo Davanzati Museum and curator of the exhibition. “The exhibition of the bronzes from Via de’ Calzaiuoli at the Bargello may be an opportunity to learn more about their historical and conservation history, or more simply to linger and admire the results of the prodigious casting technique by great masters such as Ghiberti, Verrocchio and Giambologna.”

The exhibition was made possible thanks to the collaboration of Firenze Musei, with staging by Opera Laboratori directed by Pietro Alongi. A video produced for the occasion and produced by SenzaFiltro Comunicazione documents in the exhibition the conservation and exhibition events of the Orsanmichele Complex during the course of the 20th century, through the reproduction of numerous digitally acquired historical and modern photographs, which show the anti-aircraft protections set up in front of the tabernacles in 1940-1943, the restoration of the bronzes undertaken since the 1980s, theopening of the museum in 1996, and the making of casts from the originals to derive the matrices needed to cast the copies. The extensive series of photographs also testifies to the evident complexity of the handling operations, which, as in the past, also required the commitment of the technical professionals involved in the setting up of the three monumental bronzes for this exhibition.

On the route through the rooms of the Bargello, special captions have been prepared to identify those works that, by virtue of historical and artistic links with the events of Orsanmichele, or with the sculptors in the exhibition, can be ideally placed in dialogue with these “illustrious” guests. The most significant example is Donatello ’s St. George (c. 1415-1417), sculpted for the tabernacle of the Arte dei Corazzai e degli Spadai, and transferred in 1891 from Orsanmichele to the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, within a niche, a replica of the original, where today the famous predella with St. George slaying the dragon and freeing the princess is also on display. Then on the northern side of the courtyard is the marble statue of Saint Luke by Niccolò di Pietro Lamberti (1403-1406), once placed in the niche of the Art of Judges and Notaries, and replaced in 1602 by Giambologna’s monumental bronze. While on the second floor, in Verrocchio’s hall, the exquisite marble bust sculpted by Mino da Fiesole portrays Piero de’ Medici (1453-1454), one of the five workers who, commissioned by the Mercanzia to have a statue made for their tabernacle at Orsanmichele, commissioned the famous sculptor to create the group of Incredulity.

Thanks to a public partnership agreement between the Bargello Museums and the Opificio delle Pietre Dure and Restoration Laboratories of Florence, which was specially stipulated on the occasion of the extraordinary restoration and refurbishment work at the Orsanmichele Complex, the operations of disassembly, handling and monitoring of the conservative state of the bronzes on display at the Bargello, and of all the other statues in the sculptural cycle, were conducted under the supervision of officials of theOpificio, among whom special thanks go to Stefania Agnoletti, Maria Baruffetti, Annalena Brini, Riccardo Gennaioli, Camilla Mancini, Elisa Pucci, Franca Sorella and Laura Speranza, in collaboration with Benedetta Matucci, Costantino Ceccanti and Benedetta Cantini, officials of the Bargello Museums.

“This is the most recent episode and, I am sure, not the last, of a decade of joint work on the Museum’s heritage,” says Emanuela Daffra, Superintendent of the Opificio delle Pietre Dure. “The unquestionable wealth of expertise acquired by the institute on bronze sculpture in general and on that conserved at the Bargello in particular makes this occasion valuable not only as a ’systemization’ of internal MiC resources, but above all as an opportunity for verification about the resilience of the conservation solutions deployed in the past and evaluation of the best expedients to be adopted, with current means, for a future presentation that guarantees not only usability but excellent conservation parameters. For this possibility of review, which is indispensable for designing the new, I am personally grateful to the management of the Bargello.”

Florence, three Orsanmichele masterpieces move temporarily to Bargello

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