.png)
If you are planning a visit to Florence in the coming months take note and get ready, because among the richest (and, perhaps, least known) museums there is the Bargello National Museum. For Renaissance lovers, the Bargello stands to sculpture as the Uffizi stands to painting: since 1865, the most important collection of Italian Renaissance sculpture has been housed there, as well as an incredible variety of medals, ivories, furniture, textiles, enamels and other numerous types of decorative arts.
The Bargello Museum is located in the historic center of Florence, in the imposing Palazzo del Bargello, also known as Palazzo del Popolo. Laying its foundation stone in 1255, the palace over the centuries housed the Capitano del Popolo of Florence, the Podestà, the Council of Justice and in 1574 became the seat of the "bargello" or Captain of Justice. For about three centuries it was used as a prison, but beginning in 1865 some of the most important Renaissance sculptures, including masterpieces by Donatello, Luca della Robbia, Verrocchio, Michelangelo and Cellini, were brought into the palace (which became the first national museum in united Italy). Over the years, the museum has been enriched with prestigious collections of decorative arts artifacts partly from the Medici collections and partly from private donations.
The Bargello, with its majestic and severe appearance, is organized into several thematic rooms, and each houses some of Italy's greatest masterpieces but not only, as in the case of the Carrand Room and the Hall of Ivories, populated mainly by the collection of French antiquarian Carrand, donated to the city of Florence in 1889. Among the most valuable works, we find Michelangelo's Bacchus (1497), famous for being one of the artist's few secular subjects, preserved precisely in the Michelangelo Room, which houses, in addition to numerous works by Buonarroti, other important works of the Italian 16th century. Also not to be missed are the two panels of the Sacrifice of Isaac that Lorenzo Ghiberti and Filippo Brunelleschi created to participate in the 1401 public competition to make the north door of the Baptistery of San Giovanni. Preserved in Donatello's Salone, the two panels represent the moment of transition from the International Gothic style, with an early development of classical roots that would flow into Renaissance art.
The permanent collection will be joined by three more masterpieces for a few months: from April 5 to September 4, 2023, the National Museum of the Bargello will host Lorenzo Ghiberti's St. John the Baptist, Andrea del Verrocchio's Incredulity of St. Thomas, and Giambologna's St. Luke on exhibit. These three works, from Orsanmichele's celebrated sculptural cycle, have been temporarily relocated following the temporary closure of the Orsanmichele Monumental Complex (from Dec. 12, 2022 to Sept. 22, 2023) for extraordinary restoration work, securing, refitting and access improvements.
"The exhibition, focused on the three great bronze masterpieces, aims not only to make visible some of the most important statues of the Renaissance, which mark fundamental passages of the Florentine Renaissance, during the extraordinary works planned for this year at Orsanmichele," said Paola D'Agostino, Director of the Bargello Museums, "but also to link more closely the collections of the Bargello Museums, unique in showing the domain of Florentine bronze statuary from the 15th to the early 17th century."
Take advantage of this more unique than rare opportunity now and rush to visit the Bargello National Museum, if you are a fan of sculpture and decorative arts (like us at intOndo), you will not be disappointed!
