Uffizi recomposes two textbook polyptychs thanks to new acquisitions

Important medieval works are entering the collections of the Uffizi Galleries: these are Lippo di Benivieni ’s I santi Zenobi, Paolo, Pietro e Benedetto and La Trinità, San Giovanni Evangelista and San Paolo by Giovanni da Milano, works that have just been acquired and that will make it possible to recompose two important dismembered polyptychs of which the Galleries already preserve some panels.

The four panels by Lippo di Benivieni will be reunited with the Uffizi panel depicting The Madonna and Child, thus reconstructing the central register of a large altar dossal considered one of the milestones in the career of Benivieni, a leading painter on the Tuscan scene between the 13th and 14th centuries and an exponent of an alternative current to that of Giotto, culturally oriented toward the elegant and refined painting of the Sienese ambit.

Giovanni da Milano ’s panel formed the cusp of an imposing four-by-three-meter polyptych made for the high altar of the Church of Ognissanti in Florence. Transformations to the church over the centuries led to its dismemberment and the irretrievable loss of many parts. In 1860 the Florentine Galleries acquired for their collections the surviving panels: five side compartments with figures of saints and five elements of the predella. The acquisition of this additional painting thus expands the reconstruction of the polyptych, which is considered a fundamental starting point in the career of Giovanni da Milano, one of the most relevant personalities of post-Giottesque Italian painting, but whose artistic career still remains mysterious in many respects.

“With the purchase of these five panels, it has been possible to reassemble together polyptychs that were fragmented and partly dispersed in the 19th century, and therefore arrived incomplete at the Uffizi: if until now the public has been able to appreciate them at the museum for their intrinsic value, this reunion restores their original meaning and allows their artistic quality to be fully enjoyed,” said Uffizi Galleries Director Eike Schmidt. “Thanks to today’s additions to the Uffizi collection, two textbook masterpieces are reborn, which will give visitors to the Uffizi and scholars all a better understanding of the panorama of medieval painting in Florence and Tuscany.”

Uffizi recomposes two textbook polyptychs thanks to new acquisitions

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