Luca Giordano and Taddeo Mazzi's sketches on display at the Uffizi.

At the Uffizi Gallery, and specifically in the Sala del Camino, a special exhibition kicks off that introduces visitors to two new, important acquisitions by the Florence museum: these are two sketches, one by Luca Giordano (Naples, 1634 - 1705) and one made by Taddeo Mazzi (Palagnedra, Switzerland, 1676 - Florence, first half of the 18th century). Giordano’s is a sketch for the famous frescoes that the Neapolitan artist painted in the Corsini Chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine in 1682, at the time of his stay in the city, when he was called by Bartolomeo and Neri Corsini for work in the family chapel aimed at celebrating the Corsini family with a fresco depicting the Glory of St. Andrew Corsini: It is a great masterpiece ofBaroque art that decorates the dome of the chapel. Mazzei’s, on the other hand, relates to an altarpiece for the Antella chapel at the sanctuary of Monte Senario (work of 1725-1726). The presence of the sketches in the Uffizi’s collection is intended to reaffirm the link that unites the Gallery to the territory: “the two small canvases in fact,” reads the presentation, “recall great decorative cycles that are part of the historical and artistic fabric of the city and its surroundings and represent, moreover, an invitation to visit places of great charm but less known to the general public.”

The exhibition really wants to refer to the territory right from the title, which is The Uffizi and the Territory. Sketches by Luca Giordano and Taddeo Mazzi for two large monastic complexes (the exhibition period is from September 5 to October 15, 2017). In addition to the sketches, the exhibition will also feature self-portraits by Luca Giordano and Taddeo Mazzi, which have already been in the Uffizi collection since the time of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany, and two other sketches, an additional study by Luca Giordano for the Corsini Chapel (arriving from the Corsini Gallery in Rome) and one by Antonio Domenico Gabbiani (Florence, Feb. 13, 1652 - November 22, 1726) also made for the sanctuary of Montesenario, specifically for the fresco of the nave vault.

For the Corsini Chapel, Giordano made at least three sketches: the one featured in the exhibition was purchased in 2016 by the Uffizi on the antiquarian market, where it reappeared at the 2015 Florence Biennale (it was thought to have been lost) and is probably the most important as it depicts the main scene of the fresco. The sketch by Mazzi, a lesser-known artist, is instead as anticipated related to the Antella chapel at the Montesenario sanctuary: the Ticinese painter worked on the frescoes of the dome and the altarpiece, works that place Mazzi within the artistic culture of eighteenth-century Florence (in fact, he moved very young to Tuscany, when he was only eighteen, and joined the large Lombard community present in the grand ducal city). The Antella work, created in 1726, belongs to the extreme phase of a career in which the artist dealt exclusively with religious subjects and which saw him in contact with the Medici milieu.

“With the purchase of the two sketches by Luca Giordano and the Tuscanized Ticinese Taddeo Mazzi,” emphasizes Uffizi director Eike Schmidt, “it is intended to invite visitors on the one hand to step into the minds of the two artists at the moment of the museum contemplation of the works, and on theother to travel to the Corsini Chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine and the Servite sanctuary of Monte Senario in Vaglia, to assimilate all the beauty of the final (and much larger) works on site. It will be an extraordinary cimento, intellectual and physical, from the initial idea to public realization, from the closed space of the museum to the open city, and to the wonderful countryside with its hidden riches.”

The exhibition is curated by Alessandra Griffo and Maria Matilde Simari (who also edited the catalog published by Giunti) and features installations created by Opera Laboratori Fiorentini and Donata Vitali based on a project by Antonio Godoli with the collaboration of Antonio Russo, and a multimedia narrative curated by Mirko Peripimeno and Federica Strufaldi (Lo Studio/35). Can be visited Tuesday through Sunday 8:15 a.m.-6:50 p.m. (Uffizi tickets: full 12.50 euros, reduced 6.25 euros, free for under 18, disabled, journalists, teachers and students of architecture, cultural heritage, science of education, literature or philosophy with an archaeological or art historical focus, teachers). More information at www.gallerieuffizimostre.it.

Image: Luca Giordano, Saint Andrew Corsini Presented by the Virgin is Welcomed into Heavenly Glory by the Holy Trinity (Glory of Saint Andrew Corsini) (1682; sketch for the main scene of the frescoed dome of the Corsini Chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence, oil on canvas, 130 x 96 cm; Florence, Uffizi Galleries, Gallery of Statues and Paintings)

Luca Giordano and Taddeo Mazzi's sketches on display at the Uffizi.

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