Uffizi, refurbished thirteenth-century hall, styled ... ecclesiastical

More new fittings at the Uffizi, where the restyling of the Sala del Duecento, located at the beginning of the gallery’s first corridor, was inaugurated yesterday morning. The layout, characterized by dark gray walls, chosen to enhance the gold backgrounds of the works received, includes the use of sturdy anti-reflective glass, which allows the public close contact with the medieval masterpieces. The environment has been structured to recall an ecclesiastical space, in consonance with the setting desired in the 1950s in the nearby Sala delle Maestà by architects Michelucci, Scarpa and Gardella. Architectural elements placed as a reminder of tradition include a pietra serena step placed under the monumental crosses.

The room houses a remarkable collection of panel paintings made between the 12th and late 13th centuries, offering a selected overview of Tuscan, especially Florentine, painting before Cimabue and Giotto. The collection is distinguished by the quality of the works and the variety of types of paintings, including two monumental historiated crucifixes with scenes from the Passion, depicting Christ crucified in the variant of Christ Triumphant, and Christ Sorrowing, respectively. These are for the most part works originally intended for churches, although the provenance of only a few is known. Prominent among them is the large diptych from the convent of Santa Chiara in Lucca, attributable to Bonaventura Berlinghieri, a Lucchese painter who was a member of an important family of artists. Next to the Virgin and the stories of the Passion, a number of saints are depicted, including Francis of Assisi and the foundress of the Poor Clares, St. Clare, who died in 1253 and was canonized in 1255.

Of great importance is the altar frontal with the Redeemer, the Virgin and Saints John the Evangelist, Peter and Paul from the collection of Vincenzo Taccoli Canacci, one of the first collectors with a taste for ’primitives’; the work, which anticipates in its composition with figures within arches, the structure of polyptychs, bears the date 1271 and the signature of the painter, Meliore, a Florentine who had fought at the Battle of Montaperti in 1260. Among the works with a Marian subject, the Madonna and Child Enthroned from the oratory of Santa Maria di Casale in the Greve in Chianti area stands out for its considerable size and vivid coloring. The work is characterized by the depiction, at the bottom, of the scene of the Annunciation, an element that anticipates the custom of depicting sacred scenes in the step of altar tables in use in the 14th century.

Uffizi, refurbished thirteenth-century hall, styled ... ecclesiastical

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