Via Cavour, 3, ☎ +39 055 2760340 (ticket office),
biglietteria@palazzo-medici.it
Full price €7, reduced
(military soldiers, children between 6 and 12, groups of over 15
people, etc.) €4, free for the handicapped.
Palazzo Medici Riccardi is located in Florence at number 3 of what was called Via Larga due to its size, today via Cavour, and is the current seat of the Metropolitan Council.
The Palace of Cosimo the Elder
The palace is a work by Michelozzo,
commissioned by the patriarch of the Medici fortunes, Cosimo the Elder.
At first Cosimo had asked Brunelleschi for a project, but, being a fine
politician, he rejected it due to its too much magnificence which would
certainly have aroused the envy of his fellow citizens (Vasari reports
that the project was too sumptuous and magnificent, even if Vasari's
affirmations have not found other confirmations on the effective
existence of Brunelleschi's project). On the other hand, his scruples
were not unfounded, given that just ten years earlier, due to the
accusation of tyranny by his political opponents, he had suffered
imprisonment in Palazzo Vecchio and exile in Veneto, from which however
he had been recalled to Florence with much satisfaction for the popular
acclaim.
Thus he commissioned Michelozzo, an equally valid but
more discreet architect, who built a cubic palace with an imposing but
sober and austere external appearance (1444-1452 or 1460), around a
central square courtyard with Corinthian columns, inspired in part by
the recovery of classical elements by Leon Battista Alberti in the
almost contemporary construction of Palazzo Rucellai. However, it was
precisely the Palazzo Medici that established one of the models of
Renaissance civil architecture in Florence and beyond. An example of
derivation is Palazzo Strozzi.
The golden age of Lorenzo the
Magnificent
At the end of the fifteenth century, the grandiose Medici
art collections were kept in the palace, such as Donatello's David,
which was exhibited in the courtyard, or the three paintings by Paolo
Uccello of the Battle of San Romano, which adorned the bedroom of the
Magnificent, without neglect the works of Botticelli, Verrocchio,
Pollaiolo, Domenico Ghirlandaio, the collections of gems, cameos and
vases in hard stones and rock crystal, etc.
In the large park on the
north side of the Palazzo, the so-called Orto di San Marco, bought by
Lorenzo's wife, Clarice Orsini, the classical sculptures bought largely
in Rome were placed, and the forerunner was created under the direction
of the sculptor Bertoldo of what was a real Academy of Fine Arts for the
first time in Europe, where young artists could copy and study classical
models and learn artistic techniques. The most important of these was
Michelangelo Buonarroti, as Vasari testifies in Le Vite.
Often
the young artists were also hosted in the palace by Lorenzo, as
happened, for example, to Michelangelo who lived his adolescence in the
palace. Furthermore, great cultural depth was given by the frequent
presence of the Neoplatonic circle of Florentine humanists, including
the philosopher Pico della Mirandola and the poet Agnolo Poliziano. Thus
a wide-ranging cultural environment was created in the building, which
favored the development of Renaissance thought and art.
The
sixteenth century
With the death of Lorenzo in 1492, an era ended for
the whole city. The Florentines, incited by the sermons of Savonarola,
who thundered against the lascivious, ostentatiously sumptuous and
neo-pagan customs of the city, were instigated to revolt and sacked the
palace in 1494, confiscating in the name of the Florentine Republic the
Medici treasure, made up of gold, jewels and priceless works of art.
The occasion arose from the cowardly behavior of Lorenzo's son, Piero,
on the occasion of the passage of the army of the French King Charles
VIII, to whom he had opened wide the doors of the Florentine territories
and, according to the chroniclers most hostile to the Medici, had even
kissed slippers as a sign of submission.
It was following the
so-called second expulsion of the Medici (after the first ostracism of
Cosimo the Elder) that the bronze sculpture of Judith and Holofernes by
Donatello, until then the ornament of a fountain in the palace garden,
was relocated to Piazza della Signoria, to symbolize the defeat of
tyranny by the people. A similar fate befell David, also by Donatello,
which ended up in Palazzo Vecchio (today kept in the Bargello museum).
A worse fate befell other properties which were put up for auction
in Orsanmichele; however, the treasure fortunately remained largely in
Florence and was mostly reassembled by the successors of the family.
In fact, three years later, thanks to the help of the Spanish troops,
Cardinal Giovanni (later Pope Leo X), also the son of Lorenzo the
Magnificent, and Cardinal Giulio (later Pope Clement VII), son of the
brother of Lorenzo, that Giuliano murdered during the Pazzi conspiracy.
Among the renovations to the building of this period are the large
windows on the ground floor, when the original loggia close to the road
was eliminated, gaining both space and safety of the house. Equipped
with a triangular tympanum and a support shelf placed on very
accentuated shelves, for which, due to their shape they are called
kneeling and are attributed to Michelangelo (1517) and represent the
prototype for many other creations. The sculpture of Orpheus by Baccio
Bandinelli was placed in the courtyard and can still be admired today.
The news of the sack of Rome, which had put the then predominant
figure of the Medici, Pope Clement VII (Giulio de' Medici), in
difficulty led to the last expulsion of the family from the city and to
a new sack of the palace (1527). The recovery of the city followed with
the famous Siege of Florence in 1530, at the end of which the last
descendants of the main branch of the family returned to the palace. But
the cross-murder of Duke Alessandro de' Medici and his cousin Lorenzino
(known as Lorenzaccio), brought to power a hitherto secondary branch of
the family, that of the so-called commoners, with Cosimo I's ascent to
the ducal title, who moved with his wife Eleonora di Toledo in Palazzo
Vecchio (1540), abandoning the Palazzo Medici in Via Larga, now devoid
of any function of representation, to cadet descendants of the family.
After various changes of ownership within the members of the Medici
family, in the mid-17th century the Palace returned to the Grand Duke
Ferdinando II, who now resided in the sumptuous Palazzo Pitti, decided
to sell the obsolete and ancient family palace to a wealthy family of
bankers, the Riccardis, who had rendered important political services to
the Grand Duke and, for this, had been decorated by him with the title
of marquis. The faithful Marquis Gabriello Riccardi thus bought the
palace for the sum of forty thousand scudi, which has since changed its
name (1659).
In 1669 the world premiere of Jacopo Melani's The
Return of Ulysses took place and in 1670 of Melani's Enea in Italy.
Until the end of the eighteenth century, the Riccardis carried out
numerous transformations, while maintaining the external morphology and
style of the fifteenth century, as a form of respect for Michelozzo's
project, as well as for the authoritative former owners. The building
was doubled in size, losing the original cubic shape and, on the new
facade on Via Larga, the style of the old part was maintained.
Starting from the ground floor, you enter the loggia which was decorated
by Andreozzi with putti in stucco, a material which was very popular in
Florence in those years and which characterized the Florentine Baroque.
The Gallery on the first floor was built in 1685, which, although
not exceptional in size, is one of the most significant and attractive
results of the Florentine Baroque. Decorated with gilded stuccos and
painted mirrors and equipped with large and bright windows on the south
side, it is famous above all for the large painted vault, executed by
Luca Giordano. The Neapolitan painter, nicknamed Luca fa presto due to
his speed of execution, was in the city for the frescoes in the Corsini
Chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine and soon received the new commission.
The vault of the gallery represents the Apotheosis of the Medici
family, protectors and benefactors of the Riccardis. In this case, the
viewer is struck by the play of perspective and the refined shades of
brightness, consistent with the point of view and with the light of the
gallery in broad daylight, which give extraordinary illusionistic
effects.
In the gallery on the ground floor of the same building
we can see clusters of vines taken from the vaults of Cortona in Palazzo
Pitti in the Sala dei Pianeti and from Volterrano for Violante della
Rovere's bedroom; in these clusters Foggini inserted shells and foliage,
which will later be found in the adjacent Library, in the Camerino di
Violante in Pitti and in the Feroni Chapel in the basilica of the
Santissima Annunziata.
The Riccardiana Library was also created,
as the seat of the precious book collections of the family in the new
wing, this too frescoed on the ceiling of the main hall by Luca
Giordano. The interiors were also reorganized, raising the ceilings and
decorating the rooms. The grand staircase was created (based on a
project by Giovan Battista Foggini), which leads from the original
courtyard by Michelozzi to the Chapel of the Magi (canceled on the
occasion, in order to save it from demolition) and to the private homes
on the first floor.
A part of the Riccardi collection of
antiquities (statues, busts, reliefs and fragments of stone
inscriptions) were placed in whimsical Baroque frames in the courtyard.
In the garden, against the back wall, framed by a large arch, you can
see a fountain made up of a marble statue, which overlooks a
semicircular basin. During the renovation works of the building, the
head of the Marquis Francesco Riccardi was grafted onto this ancient
headless sculpture - perhaps Hercules - thus leaving to posterity the
features immortalized in the much more imposing ones of the famous hero
of Greek mythology.
Very interesting is the Room now called the
Prefect (closed to the public), which was the last to be decorated at
the end of the eighteenth century with views of architectural whims and
grotesque frescoes.
The Riccardi family lived in the building for
about two centuries, renowned for being one of the richest and most
influential families in Florence at the time. A curiosity of the
building is the small secret room of the seventeenth century, located in
the mezzanine between the first and second floors, not accessible to the
public, brought to light only during the campaign for the metric surveys
of the building built in 1988/1989 and entirely frescoed with
architectural elements in trompe d'oeil. It is located in the old part
and was created above the only non-raised ceiling of the reception rooms
on the first floor and, for unknown reasons, was forgotten for at least
170 years, from when the building was sold by the Riccardis.
In 1810 the descendants of the Riccardi family were burdened by ever
greater economic difficulties and, as the Palazzo was now too large and
expensive for their needs, it was sold to the grand ducal government.
The Lorraines used some administrative offices and the headquarters of
the Urban Guard there. It then passed to state property with national
unification.
In 1839 the Moreniana Library was born, from the
name of the canon Domenico Moreni, who possessed a vast book collection.
This collection was almost entirely saved by an employee of the
Accademia della Crusca, Pietro Bigazzi, who bought it, thus avoiding its
dispersion. It was joined to the Riccardiana Library, but remained
institutionally distinct from it, so much so that today it continues to
be managed by the Province, while the Riccardiana is managed by the
State.
In the short period of Florence as capital, the palace
housed the Ministry of the Interior (1865).
In 1874 the building
was purchased by the Province of Florence, which still owns the complex,
together with the Prefecture. In the 19th century some modernization
works were carried out on the building, sometimes very questionable,
such as the construction of a steel canopy in the garden, where the
offices of the Telegraph Authority were located.
From 1911 to
1929 important restoration works were carried out to free the building
from the superstructures imposed by the administrative use of the last
forty years. An attempt was made to reconstitute, as far as possible,
the original structure, without however touching the more than decent
additions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. For example, the
steel canopy was removed and the seventeenth-century garden was
recreated, some original columns covered by masonry were brought to
light and a museum of Medici iconography was created in the ground
floor, which no longer exists.
An important historic event took
place in the Palazzo on 11 August 1944, when the Tuscan Committee of
National Liberation took office there, after the liberation of Florence
from the Nazi-fascist yoke. Already the following day the Provincial
Deputation, appointed by the CTLN itself, held its first meeting for the
administrative government of the city. In memory of that historical
period, today a small section of the building also houses the Archive of
the Italian Resistance.
The creation of the museum in Palazzo Medici Riccardi dates back to
1939, by the Province of Florence, with the first Museum of Medici
Iconography in some rooms on the ground floor. Born in the full
historical period of Fascism, it illustrated the history of the Medici
with a rather celebratory setting, almost as if to use the glories of
the past as means of political propaganda (a bit like what happened with
the ruins of Imperial Rome) and with the exhibition of memories, relics
and even relics of the most famous members of the family (such as
Lorenzo's funeral mask and teeth, Giuliano's bloodied dress worn during
the attack that cost him his life, etc.).
It was from the newly
liberated Medici Riccardi palace that the Tuscan Committee for National
Liberation proclaimed the general insurrection of Tuscany against the
German-Nazi-fascist occupiers on 11 August 1944 in the name of the
"Tuscan people".
In 1966 the flood seriously damaged the
exhibition, which was dismantled for the indispensable restorations,
but, at the end of the works, it was no longer considered necessary to
restore the old museum. Subsequently, from 1972 those rooms on the
ground floor were used for temporary exhibitions, with an entrance fee,
as is still the case today. The Chapel of Benozzo Gozzoli could be
visited, free of charge, only by scholars, while some monumental rooms
were open to the public upon request. The courtyards were mainly used as
parking for cars.
In 1992 it was decided to open the Chapel of
the Magi to the public, for a fee, with the necessary precautions, such
as the imposition of a maximum number of 10-15 visitors every quarter of
an hour, for reasons of protection.
An important reform of the
museum has taken place since 2000: the entrance and the ticket office
have been moved to the Riccardian wing and the main entrance that leads
to the Michelozzo courtyard has been closed (finally with the
elimination of the parking lot), a single ticket has been introduced for
visit the whole building: Chapel of the Magi, rooms on the first floor,
courtyards, garden and temporary exhibitions.
The provincial
offices are now reduced to a minimum and the building is mostly used
only as the seat of the Provincial Council and as the residence of the
Prefect, who must reside there permanently, and some other
representative rooms, such as the chamber of the President of the
Republic, which it is used on the occasion of his visit to the city.
Also in 2000, a multimedia installation was created to prepare
visitors for a visit to the Chapel of the Magi with information in
various languages on the frescoes. Some works from the deposits such as
sculptures and ancient lapidary material gave rise to a Roman Marble
Museum in the area of the cellars below the courtyard. Architecture a
new and authoritative dignity by combining contemporary architecture
with the testimonies of the past.
The building was and is located in a strategic place at the
crossroads between Via Larga (now Via Cavour) and Via de' Gori, very
close to the churches protected by the family (San Lorenzo and San
Marco) and the Cathedral. For this reason, the whole area is called the
"Medici Quarter".
Michelozzo drew on the classic rigor of
Brunelleschi to purify and enrich the Florentine tradition of the Gothic
style. The shape of the original building was almost cubic, with a
central courtyard from which a portal allowed access to the garden,
surrounded by high walls.
Its facade is a masterpiece of sobriety and elegance, although it has
"exceptional" features such as the use of rustication, which in the
Middle Ages was normally reserved for public buildings where a city
government had its seat. The exterior is therefore divided into three
registers, separated by string course frames with indentations that
protrude towards the upper floors. On the contrary, the ashlar is
graduated so as to be very protruding on the ground floor, more
flattened on the first floor and characterized by smooth slabs and just
listed on the second, thus highlighting the lightening of the volumes
upwards and emphasizing a trend horizontal volumes.
On the ground
floor there was a corner portico (walled up in 1517); on the top floor,
instead of the cornice with carved corbels, there were merlons which
accentuated its military character. Along the east and south sides runs
a street bench, a high stone plinth, which served for practical and
aesthetic reasons.
The mullioned windows regularly punctuate the
facade, framed by a round arch with a medallion in the center with the
Medici coat of arms and rosettes. The windows are slightly
differentiated from floor to floor, with wider frames at the top in
order to balance the lower height of the floor. The effect is however to
give greater prominence to the main floor.
The ashlars in
pietraforte on the ground floor, the most protruding ones, have small
circles and other symbols engraved, which were left by quarrymen and
stonemasons to recognize the suitability of the boulders for the design
of a given building. Other symbols can be seen in other
fifteenth-century Florentine palaces, for example in Palazzo Pitti,
Palazzo Rucellai or Palazzo dello Strozzino.
A remarkable study of decorative harmony and variety is also found in
the courtyard, set up to suggest an effect of symmetry that does not
actually exist. The first register is made up of a portico with columns
with smooth shafts and composite capitals and is concluded by a high
frieze with medallions containing Medici coats of arms of various shapes
and mythological representations (attributed to Bertoldo di Giovanni),
linked by frescoes of festoons (today result of repainting), by Maso di
Bartolomeo.
The second order, with full masonry, is characterized
by mullioned windows aligned with the arches of the portico, which
reflect the shape of the external ones, with a graffitied frieze above,
while the last register has a trabeated loggia with small Ionic columns
, aligned with the lines of the portico.
The decoration, as a
whole, is drawn from the classical repertoire and composed with
imagination and according to a taste for contamination. A refined
perspective game is found in the corner columns, where there is the
greatest structural load, which are slightly lower than the others.
However, the angular conflict causes the windows on the sides to be
closer together than the others, an irregularity that other later
architects will try to resolve differently.
The palace is rich in decorations. The private chapel is called the Chapel of the Magi, a fresco masterpiece by the Florentine Benozzo Gozzoli, a pupil of Beato Angelico, commissioned by Piero il Gottoso who directly followed the planning and development of the works. This small space was the private family chapel and was built in 1459. The three main walls depict the Cavalcade of the Magi, a religious subject that serves as a pretext for representing a whole series of family portraits and political figures of the time officially in Florence at the invitation of the Medici, portraits in celebration of the family's political conquests. Among the characters depicted are a young Lorenzo the Magnificent, his father Piero the Gouty and the head of the family Cosimo the Elder. On the altar today we find a late 15th century copy of the original Nativity by Filippo Lippi, now kept in Berlin.
Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi, Tondo Cook, now in the National
Gallery in Washington
Donatello, David, today in the Bargello
Donatello, Judith and Holofernes, now in Palazzo Vecchio
Donatello,
Delivery of the Keys, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Donatello, Feast of Herod, now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lille
Donatello's workshop, Winged Boy, now in the Metropolitan Museum of New
York
Sandro Botticelli, Pallas and the Centaur, now in the Uffizi
Sandro Botticelli, Spring, now in the Uffizi
Filippo Lippi, Adoration
of the Child in Palazzo Medici
Filippo Lippi, Saint Jerome penitent,
now in the Lindenau Museum in Altenburg
Filippo Lippi, Annunciation,
now in the National Gallery, London
Filippo Lippi, Seven Saints, now
in the National Gallery, London
Paolo Uccello, Battle of San Romano,
three panels now in the Uffizi, the Louvre and the National Gallery in
London
Domenico Veneziano, Adoration of the Magi, now in the
Gemäldegalerie in Berlin
The palace was used as a model for a level in Assassin's Creed II titled Palazzo di Lorenzo il Magnifico.