The major exhibition on Leopold de' Medici prince of collectors, at the Pitti Palace

The exhibition on Cardinal Leopold de’ Medici (Florence, 1617 - 1675), which opens its doors in Florence’s Palazzo Pitti on November 7, 2017, and concludes on January 28, 2018, is one of the most eagerly awaited this fall: Leopold de’ Medici Prince of Collectors aims to offer the public an overview of one of the greatest art collectors in history memory. Son of Grand Duke Cosimo II and Archduchess Maria Magdalena of Austria, Cardinal Leopold assembled a collection that stood out for its breadth and variety: paintings, drawings, prints, engravings, sculptures, coins, medals, cameos, ivories, precious objects, books, scientific instruments and even natural rarities. The vast patrimony collected by Leopold de’ Medici later became part of the grand ducal collections after his death, to merge into the Uffizi Gallery. Today, the institution that includes the Uffizi Gallery, the Pitti Palace and the Boboli Gardens intends to pay tribute to the cardinal on the fourth centenary of his birth with an exhibition that presents choices, taste, relationships and, of course, works that were part of his collection. An exhibition that could only take place in Palazzo Pitti, the palace where the cardinal kept his collection.

Leopold de’ Medici collected objects with skill, great precision and almost visionary organizational skills, since from the very beginning the cardinal was able to envision the future structure, style and morphology of his collection, so that every purchase was targeted and conducted with rigor. The cardinal forged relationships with artists, inserted himself in theRoman environment where, thanks to the support of agents and personalities such as Ottavio Falconieri and Leonardo Agostini and some great artists such as Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Pietro da Cortona and Ercole Ferrata, he took to buying ancient sculptures, and still had contacts with distant lands (he had objects arriving from Asia, America, and Northern Europe), was a supporter of science by promoting, between 1657 and 1667, the Accademia del Cimento, an association of scientists that was the first in Europe to make use of the Galilean method.

The exhibition, curated by Valentina Conticelli, Riccardo Gennaioli and Maria Sframeli, will also give an account of Leopoldo de’ Medici’s choices aimed at constructing a true history of European art through the portraits of its protagonists: in fact, the cardinal had a room in his apartment entirely dedicated to the self-portraits of great painters, a collection that still constitutes one of the main prides of the Uffizi Gallery.

Visiting the rooms of the collection, explains the director of the Uffizi, Eike Schmidt, "aroused that marvel that was one of the hallmarks of seventeenth-century poetics, and so important paintings and an extraordinary number of drawings from those schools arrived in Florence, along with miniatures, self-portraits, portraits (he was the first to begin a systematic collection of the latter two types), rare and precious objects, scientific instruments and books.“ Leopold, he adds, ”must be considered not a collector but the prince of collectors, to whom the history of Italian and European art is still indebted, and that is why four hundred years after his birth (Leopold was born on Nov. 6, 1617) it seemed right to pay him homage with this exhibition."

The exhibition can be visited during the opening hours of the Pitti Palace: daily, except Mondays, from 8:15 a.m. to 6:50 p.m., last entry at 6:05 p.m. Tickets, also valid for visiting the museum: full 13 euros, reduced 6.50 euros (EU citizens between 18 and 25 years old). Free for under 18s of any nationality, disabled and accompanying person, journalists, teachers and students of Architecture, Conservation of Cultural Heritage, Education Sciences, Bachelor of Arts and Philosophy degree with archaeological or historical-artistic degree addresses, Bachelor’s degree or corresponding courses in European Union member states, Italian teachers with fixed-term and open-ended contracts in service at a public or equal school in the country. For information: www.uffizi.it. Catalog published by Sillabe.

Image: Justus Suttermans, Leopold de’ Medici child on horseback (c. 1624-1625; oil on canvas; Benešov, Konopiště Castle)

The major exhibition on Leopold de' Medici prince of collectors, at the Pitti Palace

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