Great Islamic art on display: at the Uffizi and Bargello, the relationship between Islam and Florence

The exhibition Islam and Florence. Art and Collecting from the Medici to the 20th Century, at theMagliabechiana Hall of the Uffizi Gallery and at the Bargello National Museum. An exhibition, therefore, in two locations, examining the relationship between Islam and Florence, first in Medici collecting and then in Lorraine collecting, up to and beyond the Unification of Italy, since relations between the city and the Islamic East have always been particularly fruitful. We start with an antecedent, from a gift that the Sultan of Egypt Qayt Bay sent to Lorenzo the Magnificent in 1487: a giraffe, which unfortunately, although kept in special stables specially built in the villa at Poggio a Caiano and Via della Scala in Florence, got its head stuck between the rafters of the ceiling and died, breaking its neck, less than two months after its arrival in Tuscany. The giraffe was a virtually unknown animal in Florence at the time, and was thus celebrated in painting by artists such as Francesco Botticini, Giorgio Vasari, Bachiacca, and Piero di Cosimo. And at the Uffizi it will be possible to see a stuffed giraffe given to Grand Duke Leopold II by the Viceroy of Egypt in the 1830s.

But there are not only exotic animals. It is, the Uffizi promises, “a sumptuous review of Islamic art, curated by Giovanni Curatola and organized by the Uffizi with the Bargello National Museum, another exhibition venue. It is a unique opportunity to discover knowledge, exchanges, dialogues and influences between the arts of West and East. For more than two years, an international scientific committee has worked intensively on the selection of works and the exhibition catalog, with essays rich in scientific and historical investigation that make clear Florence’s very important role in interreligious and intercultural exchanges between the 15th and early 20th centuries.” According to Eike Schmidt, director of the Uffizi Galleries, “the exhibition highlights not only the interests in Islamic culture that were already well rooted in Medici collecting and continued into modern times, but also testifies to the aesthetic fascination with the East that, without prejudice, has always permeated European art. And it also brings to our attention the fundamental importance of trade, but above all intellectual and human exchanges, in the Mediterranean basin and beyond, as a means of enrichment and peace.”

For Elisa D’Agostino, the director of the Bargello Museums, “the exhibition is important not only to understand the role of the Medici and Florence in relations with the near and far East in the Renaissance and beyond, but also to reveal to the public the fundamental role that the city gigliata had in the late 19th century in Italian and foreign intellectual and collector exchanges in the creation of museum nuclei of Islamic art and museographic excellence, among which that of the Bargello National Museum is to this day one of the most important in Italy. Florence’s ancient interest in the Islamic world, is already testified in the diaries of Florentine merchants Simone Sigoli, Leonardo Frescobaldi and Giorgio Gucci who in 1384, during their pilgrimage to the Holy Land, also visited Cairo and Damascus, amazed by the quantity and extraordinary beauty of the artifacts so much so that they go so far as to say, ”... truly all of Christendom for a year could be supplied with merchandise in Damascus."

Thus, extraordinary Islamic carpets, “mesci roba” and “all’azzimina” vases, i.e., ageminati (a technique of working metals to obtain polychrome decoration), enameled glass, rock crystals, ivories, and lustrous ceramics from theWestern Islam, that is, Spain, and known to us as “majolica” because the last port from which they departed before reaching the rest of Europe was Majorca. A very important nucleus of Islamic art is preserved in Florence: there are nearly 3,300 works donated in 1889 by the Lyon antiquarian Louis Carrand to the Bargello National Museum, already then among the leading museums in Europe. The Islamic room at the Bargello was set up in 1982 by Marco Spallanzani and Giovanni Curatola, at the urging of Paola Barocchi and the then-director, Giovanna Gaeta Bertelà, who placed the best of Islam in relation to Donatello and the masterpieces of Renaissance statuary.

The exhibition, as anticipated, is spread over two exhibition venues: at the Bargello, a fundamental period of research, collecting and museum settings in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is illustrated, with works from the aforementioned Carrand donation and from the other great English collector, Frederick Stibbert, as well as from Tuscans Stefano Bardini and Giulio Franchetti. In those years, Florence was frequented by important collectors, both Italian and foreign, museum directors, curators, connoisseurs, including Wilhelm von Bode and Bernard Berenson, both also admirers of Islamic art. It was in that cultural climate, thanks in part to the foresight of great Bargello directors such as Igino Benvenuto Supino, that one of the world’s most imported collections of decorative arts was formed: and at that time Islam was certainly not considered peripheral, far from it.

At the Uffizi, the other exhibition venue, artistic evidence of contacts between East and West is collected: the suggestions (starting with the Arabic characters of the Virgin and St. Joseph’s haloes and the costumes in Gentile da Fabriano’sAdoration of the Magi ) and the portraits of sultans from the Jovian series at the hands of Cristofano dell’Altissimo. And also the precious specimens of metalwork, sought after since the time of Lorenzo the Magnificent, oriental ceramics, or Hispano-Moorish ones with Florentine noble coats of arms. Also on display are fabrics and large carpets from Mamluk Egypt of the late 15th or early 16th centuries, which entered the Medici-Grand Ducal collections very early, glassware, metals that influenced coeval Italian production, and splendid manuscripts, among which stand out the pages of the oldest oldest dated codex (1217) of the “Book of Kings” by the Persian Firdusi, owned by the Biblioteca Nazionale, and the oriental specimens of the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, rare for their dating and provenance.

A varied itinerary that unravels through centuries of cultural exchanges and contaminations, also enriched by loans from important Italian and foreign museums. Florence and Islam. Art and Collecting from the Medicis to the Twentieth Century is the exhibition that the Uffizi and the Bargello have organized with important international loans and from other Institutes in the Florentine territory (Stibbert Museum, National Central Library of Florence, Bardini Museum and the Medici Villa of Cerreto Guidi where part of the Bardini legacy is housed) that, in turn, have articulated itineraries dedicated to Islamic art in their museum venues. These institutes will be signaled through a printed brochure and in digital format, downloadable from the two websites of the Uffizi and Bargello, which will give an account of the quantity of valuable Islamic works in so many museums in and around Florence. The brochure in Italian and English will be given to all visitors to the exhibition at the Bargello and the Uffizi.

For the duration of the exhibition, the two Florentine museums also, for the first time, are offering the opportunity to purchase a combined ticket for €29, reduced €14.50, valid for three days that will allow visitors to visit the Uffizi, the Bargello the exhibition Florence and Islam. Art and Collecting from the Medici to the Twentieth Century, and with access also to the Archaeological Museum of Florence. The exhibition Islam and Florence. Art and Collecting from the Medici to the Twentieth Century is in conjunction and in collaboration with the exhibition Montefeltro and the Islamic East at the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche. The catalog is published by Giunti All info on the official Uffizi website.

Pictured: Rectangular casket from Umayyad Spain (Córdoba), 10th century (carved and engraved ivory sheets with Renaissance silver mounts with semiprecious stones and colored glass; Florence, Museo Nazionale del Bargello)

Great Islamic art on display: at the Uffizi and Bargello, the relationship between Islam and Florence

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