Florence dedicates an exhibition to Flemish Giovanni Stradano for the 500th anniversary of his birth

On the occasion of the five hundredth anniversary of his birth, Florence, in the museum venue of Palazzo Vecchio, is dedicating an exhibition to the Flemish painter Giovanni Stradano (Jan van der Straet, Bruges 1523 - Florence 1605). The artist worked extensively for the city in which he chose to live until the end of his eighty-two years. Giovanni Stradano in Florence 1523-2023. The Strangest and Most Beautiful Inventions in the World, this is the title of the exhibition open to the public from November 17, 2023 to February 18, 2024, promoted by the City of Florence - World Heritage Office and Relations with UNESCO and MUS.E, with the support of the Ministry of Tourism, the scientific direction and general coordination of Carlo Francini and Valentina Zucchi, and the curatorship of Alessandra Baroni, exhibits about eighty works including paintings, drawings, prints, books, tapestries and tools and aims to offer a never-before-seen insight into Stradano, who was Giorgio Vasari ’s main and most versatile collaborator in the decoration of Palazzo Vecchio. Here Stradano was engaged for many years in the decoration of the new rooms, including the apartments dedicated to the Medici, the rooms of Eleanor of Toledo, the Studiolo of Francis I, and the Great Hall, known as the Salone dei Cinquecento. A portraitist, landscape painter, and above all an original draughtsman, Giovanni Stradano was also an Academician of Drawing since the foundation of the prestigious institution desired by Cosimo I de’ Medici in 1563. Giorgio Vasari, according to whom Stradano had “buon disegno, bonissimi capricci, molto invenzione e buon modo di colorire,” relied on him for many works, including the original painting for the Battle of Scannagallo, symbol of Florence’s victory over Siena, and the famous tapestries of the Hunts, destined for the villa at Poggio a Caiano.

“An exhibition that aims to reconnect citizens with their cultural heritage through the events and characters of Florentine history,” said Deputy Mayor and Councillor for Culture Alessia Bettini, “turning the spotlight on Giovanni Stradano and the importance of this artist for our city and for Palazzo Vecchio. An opportunity to discover up close one of the creators of the grandeur of the palace, in an evocative and innovative comparison between drawings and works, on which the exhibition’s key is based. A monographic exhibition that is part of the project of valorization of anniversaries and centenaries carried out by the Florence World Heritage and Unesco Relations Office as an element of identity and at the same time of openness and integration, symbolized precisely by the Florentine history of the Flemish artist.”

“The occasion of the fifth centenary of Giovanni Stradano’s birth has given us the opportunity to propose a monographic exhibition dedicated to an artist that we can admire and enjoy as we look up at the walls and wooden decks, especially inside the rooms of Palazzo Vecchio,” said Carlo Francini, Florence World Heritage and UNESCO Relations Manager and scientific director of the exhibition. “In fact, many of the preparatory drawings on display in the exhibition are placed in direct connection with Stradano’s own finished works in the palace, going to support the understanding of Giovanni Stradano’s craft. To have brought Giovanni Stradano back to Palazzo Vecchio is meant to be a clear and decisive signal: it is possible, indeed necessary, to recreate the connections between the artisans who took turns in the palace and their works, in order to make the Florentines, and those who live in our city for a long or very short time, increasingly aware of the events and stories of those who worked within Vasari’s ’maternal walls.’”

“This is an epoch-making exhibition for Palazzo Vecchio, which enhances its history by restoring its richness, complexity and originality,” explained Valentina Zucchi, head of MUS.E mediation and scientific director of the exhibition.“ ”Sharing with the public an in-depth look at the Flemish artist Giovanni Stradano, at Giorgio Vasari’s side for many years in the renovation of the Medici palace and widely appreciated by the Medici even beyond, is an opportunity to understand the scope of the ferment that characterized Florence in the second half of the 16th century and to deepen one’s knowledge of a great protagonist of the art of that time, capable of interweaving his own Nordic mark with Italian sensibilities but also of grasping the astonishing novelties of the modern age, interpreting them with acumen and creativity."

“The exhibition,” explains curator Alessandra Baroni, “offers a rare opportunity to understand how a masterpiece as iconographically complex as the decoration of the walls and panels of the Palazzo Vecchio came into being, a truly choral work and a celebration of the military and technological might of Cosimo I’s Florence. To go with the eye from Stradano’s spectacular drawings to the paintings, to the tapestries I think is a unique experience for the visitor. Stradano then understood early, before many others, that reproducing his inventions in print would multiply and prolong their success and his fame indefinitely.” Six sections are set up along the museum route, where the works in the exhibition are placed in dialogue with the paintings that Stradano himself executed in the palace, with the intention of offering an in-depth look at the decoration that can still be appreciated in the rooms, but also at his original creative modernity, with important loans from the Muséand du Louvre in Paris, the Albertina Museum in Vienna and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, as well as from the Museo di San Matteo in Pisa, the Istituto Nazionale della Grafica in Rome, the Musei Civici in Milan, the Uffizi Galleries, the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, the Biblioteca Nazionale in Florence, the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana and other important public and private collections. While ample prominence is given to works born within the Florentine court until 1574, these are flanked by paintings from other prestigious commissions and drawings for chalcographic prints of scientific and geographical interest, to which Stradano devoted himself passionately in the second part of his life, becoming a “pictor celeberrimus” universally praised, even by Vasari, for the “strangest and most beautiful inventions in the world.” Prominent among these is the Nova Reperta series, devoted to the inventions of the modern age that changed the life of mankind-from pyrrhic powder to movable type printing, from silkworm cultivation to sugarcane cultivation, from the production of clocks to eyeglasses: this is at the heart of the last section of the exhibition, which places a splendid selection of drawings and prints in dialogue with a broader path of redefining the potential of knowledge and the boundaries of the world, within which the discovery of America takes on special prominence. Starting Nov. 25, there will also be guided tours aimed at young people and adults every Saturday and Sunday at 3 p.m. For children and their families there will also be an art workshop “In the Sign of Stradano” on Sundays at 11:45 a.m., thanks to which they can get closer to the technique of engraving.

For information and reservations write to info@musefirenze.it or call 055-2768224. Participation costs 2.50 euros (residents Metropolitan City of Florence) or 5 euros (non-residents Metropolitan City of Florence), in addition to the museum entrance fee. The same proposals are also active for primary and secondary schools: for information and reservations didattica@musefirenze.it and 055-2616788. Also scheduled is a calendar of city itineraries to discover places related to the figure of Giovani Stradano in the historic center, on the following dates: Nov. 25, Dec. 16, Jan. 28, Feb. 18 at 10 a.m. Finally, an international conference sponsored by the Dutch University Institute of Art History, entitled Johannes Stradanus (1523-1605). A Flemish Artist in Florence in the age of exploration, curated by Gert Jan van der Sman and Alessandra Baroni to be held on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1.

Installation photo: Nicola Neri. Courtesy MUS.E

Florence dedicates an exhibition to Flemish Giovanni Stradano for the 500th anniversary of his birth

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