The history and stories of collecting told in two lecture series at the Uffizi

Starting Sept. 25, 2024, Brevissime, lectures on the history of the arts curated by the publishing house Centro Di that will be hosted in theAuditorium of the Uffizi Galleries, recently renamed in honor of the recently deceased art historian and former minister of culture Antonio Paolucci. Two seasons of Brevissime are planned, one from September to November 2024 and another from March to May 2025, and both will be linked by a single theme: collecting. Under the title of The Insatiable Desire. History and Stories of Collecting, the vast and multifaceted theme will be approached from multiple perspectives with the intention of offering the audience a varied and evocative panorama of themes and stories, developed over multiple eras ranging from the collecting of the ancients to the obsession with designer creations.

There will be eight fall lectures. They will begin on Sept. 25 with Uffizi Galleries director Simone Verde who will be interviewed by Ginevra Marchi, creator of the Brevissime project, on the topic of Collecting and Power.

On Oct. 3, Keith Christiansen, former curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, will tell the story of Caravaggio’s collecting in America; on Oct. 10 it will be the turn of Laura Lombardi who will address the theme of the collection as an art form, while on Oct. 24 Luca Mattedi will talk about the fortunes of the Primitives in Tuscany. It will continue on Nov. 7 with Marco Sammicheli, director of the Milan Museum of Design and curator of the Triennale, with La dispensa del Novecento that will lead to the discovery of the wonders of design collecting, while zoologist Marco Masseti, former professor of Biology at the University of Florence and author of numerous publications, in his very short Collecting the Living, scheduled for Nov. 14, will tell how the possession of exotic and rare animals by lords and rulers has always represented a tangible expression of political and economic power. Archaeologist Anna Anguissola will focus on Nov. 21 on the collections of the Romans, while on Nov. 28 Luca Scarlini, a writer and scholar, will conclude the season with a lecture on the dissipation of collections.

The Brevissime project was born from the idea of telling the story of Italy’s cultural heritage through a series of talks investigating its many aspects -- art, architecture, design, fashion and costume, botany, philosophy, archaeology -- by entrusting the disclosure to experts in the various subjects in 45-minute talks. The publishing house Centro Di launched the initiative in March 2022 and became a nonprofit association in spring 2023 with the birth of Brevissime ETS, an association also supported by contributions from Fondazione CR Firenze, Officina Profumo Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella and Casa d’Aste Pandolfini.

Tickets for the lectures can be purchased at www.brevissime.org

Full ticket: €13; under-26 ticket: €5. Free ticket: there are complimentary tickets, donated by other participants, intended for the under 26s, which can be booked on the website under “Suspended Ticket”

The history and stories of collecting told in two lecture series at the Uffizi

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