Florence, Medici Riccardi Palace expands tour: historic prefecture rooms open

In Florence, Palazzo Medici Riccardi is expanding its museum itinerary by opening the rooms on the second floor that belong to the prefecture (the prefecture of Florence is in fact based in the palace). The new itinerary was inaugurated with a ceremony held yesterday in the Palace’s Charles VIII Hall in the presence of the prefect, Francesca Ferrandino, and the mayor of the metropolitan city, Dario Nardella: the Hall itself is part of the new itinerary, along with the Piano Room, which was once the main room of the Medici apartments, and the adjacent rooms, overlooking the Cortile delle colonne and rich in works of art and decorations. The ceremony was also attended by Silvia Chiarantini, president of the Juvenile Court; Ersilia Spena, public prosecutor at the Juvenile Court; Antonella Ranaldi, superintendent of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the Metropolitan City of Florence and the provinces of Prato and Pistoia; and Valentina Zucchi, scientific director of the Museum of Palazzo Medici Riccardi.

“Palazzo Medici Riccardi,” says Dario Nardella, “reveals itself as a treasure yet to be discovered. We have made many steps forward in its enhancement, elevating the cultural offer and taking care of its spaces so rich in history and beauty. In the coming year we will invest more than 5,780,000.00 euros in the restoration of the facades and stairways.”

The prefect of Florence, Francesca Ferrandino, spoke about the project to involve young people supervised by the juvenile court in guided tours of the museum itinerary: “This path tends to the growth of an area, through young people who will be identified to work here, supervised by the juvenile judiciary and technicians, thanks to a coordination table in the prefecture. It is close to the heart of those who serve the city with a view to participatory security to carry out initiatives in the awareness that the complex moment we are living requires institutions, all of them, to find a common line of conversation, in order to identify innovative initiatives that, starting from a concept of security, go beyond it, so as to weave networks to unravel other networks, which are those of deviance.”

The ancient Medici reception hall, commissioned by Cosimo the Elder on the main floor of the family palace, built around 1451, had a carved wooden coffered ceiling, gilded and painted blue and was about 20 meters long, 10 meters wide and 7 meters high. The hall owes its name to the fact that it was here, on November 25, 1494, that negotiations took place between Charles VIII, King of France, and representatives of the Republic, which a few days earlier had decreed the banishment of the males of the Medici house and the confiscation of their property, including the residence in Via Larga, now Via Cavour. The name of the room recalls precisely the meeting between the Florentine Pier Capponi and Charles VIII of Valois.

When Gabriello Riccardi purchased the Medici Palace in 1659, major expansion and renovation work was undertaken, in accordance with Baroque taste. Among the first interventions was the creation of the “great hall” on the same floor of the southeastern wing as the Medici Hall, but slipped toward the center of the facade, with a new carved and gilded coffered ceiling, embellished with acanthus leaves and the Riccardi coat of arms, the upright inverted key on a blue field.

Instead, the palace was alienated to the state property in 1810 and purchased in 1874 by the Province of Florence - now the Metropolitan City - which is still present in the building together with the Prefecture and the Moreniana and Riccardiana Libraries.

In the museum itinerary it is possible to admire, among other masterpieces, the Chapel of the Magi by Benozzo Gozzoli (1459), a small room located in the heart of the palace, on the second floor, adjacent to the Charles VIII room, the one that as of today falls within the museum’s halls, which can be visited by the public. In addition, as mentioned, the piano room, at the back of the Charles VIII hall, and the access corridors to the new rooms, located right in front of the Chapel of the Magi, are also open to the public from today.

Every week, on Saturdays at 4:30 p.m. and Sundays at noon and 4:30 p.m., guided tours by MUS.E are scheduled to accompany young people and adults (Price: 2 € residents, 4 € non-residents + the museum entrance fee) to discover the history and works contained in the Palace, which has now been expanded and enriched by the rooms that complete the itinerary.

Pictured: the Charles VIII Hall. Photo: Wikimedia/JimmyWee

Florence, Medici Riccardi Palace expands tour: historic prefecture rooms open

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