Jacopo Vignali's paintings from the Uffizi to San Casciano, paying tribute to Carlo Del Bravo

From Oct. 1, 2022 to Jan. 8, 2023, Jacopo Vignali ’s paintings from the Uffizi Galleries go on display in San Casciano Val di Pesa, at the Giuliano Ghelli Museum, in memory of San Casciano art historian Carlo Del Bravo, the first scholar and enthusiast of the artist who amassed a substantial collection recently donated to the Uffizi. The exhibition grew out of this important acquisition, made concrete through Del Bravo’s heir, Professor Lorenzo Gnocchi.

Disappeared in Florence in 2017 and born in San Casciano on July 16, 1935, Professor Carlo Del Bravo was a student of Roberto Longhi and a longtime professor at the University of Florence, where he taught history of modern art. During his lifetime, he assembled a substantial art collection consisting of masterpieces ranging from the 16th century to the contemporary. In addition to collecting works by Jacopo Vignali, Del Bravo initiated studies on the artist in the context of that rediscovery of seventeenth-century Florentine art that took place with him and Professor Mina Gregori. Del Bravo dedicated important studies and an exhibition to the painter, organized at the Uffizi on the tercentenary of his death in 1964.

Jacopo Vignali is the artist who well represents both Del Bravo’s study interests and artistic predilections and the history and culture of the Chianti municipality, since this painter left important works in and around San Casciano. The seventeenth-century Florentine master is therefore particularly suited to recall the scholar’s activity and at the same time to be celebrated in San Casciano, as Vignali was present in the area, producing, for example, the two canvases for the local Misericordia church, namely the Circumcision, signed and dated 1627, commissioned by Raffaello di Pietro Bambacini and his son Fabio, and the Madonna of the Rosary, executed for another altar under the patronage of the Bambacini family.

The Jacopo Vignali exhibition in San Casciano is divided into two sections: the first, curated by Professor Lorenzo Gnocchi, where Vignali’s painting The Flautist, on loan from the Uffizi Galleries, the focus of this section, is found alongside other works also from the Uffizi: Christ Crowned with Thorns, The Youth Surprised by Death, a portrait to Jacopo Vignali, Volterrano’s Zephyr, and Cesare Dandini’s Shepherd with Bagpipe. The second section of the exhibition, curated by Professor Donatella Pegazzano, is instead reserved for sacred-themed paintings on loan from other institutions, such as the Presentation of Mary in the Temple, also by Vignali, and theImmaculate Conception by Francesco Curradi.

Also on display here is an unpublished work by Jacopo Vignali, the canvas/tabernacle Madonna del Rosario from the Church of San Lorenzo in Castelbonsi, near San Casciano. The work, which is to be considered chronologically close to the aforementioned Misericordia canvases, is presented to the public for the first time in this exhibition, in which its history and the events surrounding its commissioning are given an account.

This section also includes Suor Domenica del Paradiso implores the Madonna for the deliverance of Florence from the plague, a work that was executed by the painter in 1631 and is therefore chronologically close to those of the Misericordia and Castelbonsi. An integral part of the exhibition will be the section represented by the Misericordia Church, close to the museum, where other canvases by Vignali document the artist’s presence in the Sancascianese area and the commitment of one of its most illustrious families to local charitable institutions.

“Bringing Vignali, an artist Carlo Del Bravo loved and studied so much, to his land is the first step in the tribute the Galleries want to pay to the Professor,” said Uffizi Galleries Director Eike Schmidt. "In fact, the work is only just beginning: after the donation to the Uffizi Galleries of the Del Bravo collection by his heir, Lorenzo Gnocchi, the setting up of the rooms dedicated to it, in the Pitti Palace, is underway, culminating in the reconstruction of the Professor’s studio. Of the works he gradually discovered and acquired, one of the most famous is already on view: Rosso Fiorentino’s St. John in the Desert is, along with other masterpieces, in the Uffizi rooms reserved for the great painter and perhaps even surpasses, in terribleness, the so-called Spedalingo Altarpiece. And after the exhibition in San Casciano, Jacopo Vignali’s Christus Patiens and The Flautist will be displayed in Palazzo Pitti, along with other works from the Del Bravo collection."

“It is an exhibition that stems from the desire to remember and pay tribute to one of San Casciano’s most illustrious fellow citizens, Carlo Del Bravo, one of the greatest exponents of Florentine culture, an art historian, university lecturer, and scholar dedicated to research and teaching of Italian art who loved Jacopo Vignali so much that as an enthusiast and collector he kept some of his masterpieces,” added Roberto Ciappi, mayor of San Casciano in Val di Pesa. “Thanks to the donation that the heir, Professor Lorenzo Gnocchi, wanted to offer to Le Gallerie degli Uffizi and to the collaboration that has arisen with the municipality, we will have the prestigious opportunity to host in our exhibition jewel, the Giuliano Ghelli Museum, a piece of Del Bravo’s heart and some of the most representative pieces that make up Vignali’s artistic production referable to the first half of the 17th century. A great little treasure that in San Casciano will be present with a collection of twelve total works by Florentine authors of the first half of the seventeenth century, eight of which are by Vignali. The latter, some previously unpublished, are distributed largely among the rooms of the Museum with an exhibition appendix in the 14th-century Church of the Misericordia. The aim of the event, curated by Lorenzo Gnocchi and Donatella Pegazzano of the University of Florence, for which I would like to thank the partners as well as the promoters of the exhibition, the Fondazione CR Firenze, Le Gallerie degli Uffizi, as part of the Terre degli Uffizi project, is also to relaunch the Sancascianese museum in the postpandemic phase. The initiative aims to be an opportunity for in-depth study and rediscovery of the painter who was one of the most beloved of his time, appreciated by ecclesiastical and private patrons. A multifaceted artist, a pupil of Matteo Rosselli, who succeeded in giving an expressive and human connotation to the religious and allegorical dimension; he was the artist of the affections, capable of portraying the feelings of love and devotion toward sacred subjects and conferring an extraordinary truth to the figures charged with naturalness and beauty.”

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Jacopo Vignali's paintings from the Uffizi to San Casciano, paying tribute to Carlo Del Bravo

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