‘Magnifico 1492’: major exhibition on Lorenzo de’ Medici’s art collection at Palazzo Pitti

More than 100 works will be on display in the Treasury of the Grand Dukes on the ground floor of the palace (tickets available for booking from 2 November). For the first time in history, the three panels of Paolo Uccello’s Battle of San Romano (currently divided between the Uffizi, the National Gallery in London and the Louvre in Paris) will be reunited. Other outstanding masterpieces will include the gilded bronze Spiritello (Sprite), created by a sculptor close to Donatello (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), and the precious illuminated manuscript of Francesco Petrarch’s Triumphs (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris).

From 3 December 2026 to 1 March 2027, the Treasury of the Grand Dukes, on the ground floor of Palazzo Pitti, will host “Magnifico 1492”, a major exhibition organised by the Uffizi Galleries and dedicated to Lorenzo de’ Medici, the most celebrated member of the Medici dynasty.

Drawing on meticulous scholarly and curatorial research, which has also led to significant new discoveries in art history, the exhibition offers a detailed reconstruction of the vast Medici collection assembled and housed in the family palace on Via Larga in Florence, now known as Palazzo Medici Riccardi, as it was recorded in the inventory drawn up in 1492, the year of Lorenzo the Magnificent’s death. The exhibition explores and contextualises the original arrangement of the collection within the rooms of the historic residence, while offering an in-depth examination of Medici collecting practices from both art-historical and philosophical-theological perspectives, taking the objects and works on display as its starting point.

Alongside an extensive selection of paintings and sculptures, including some truly exceptional masterpieces, visitors will be able to admire vases, gems, cameos, coins, manuscripts and maps, reflecting the extraordinary breadth and diversity of interests, passions and intellectual pursuits that were among the defining characteristics of the Medici family. More than 100 works will make up the exhibition, including numerous loans of exceptional importance from a wide range of Italian and international museums.

One of the exhibition’s most extraordinary highlights will be the reunion, for the first time in history, of Paolo Uccello’s remarkable three-panel cycle depicting the Battle of San Romano. The three celebrated battle paintings, now held respectively by the Uffizi Galleries in Florence, the National Gallery in London and the Louvre in Paris, will be brought together once again, allowing visitors to admire them as they would have appeared in the Medici residence.

And there is more. The exhibition will feature many other treasures of inestimable historical and artistic value that once belonged to Lorenzo the Magnificent. These include the gilded bronze Spiritello (Sprite), created by a sculptor close to Donatello, which originally adorned the fountain in the courtyard of Lorenzo’s residence at Palazzo Medici and will be on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the exceptionally precious illuminated manuscript containing Francesco Petrarch’s Triumphs, on loan from the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. Lorenzo personally commissioned the manuscript, having it copied, illuminated and bound for his own use, and treasured it in his private study.

Simone Verde, Director of the Uffizi Galleries, commented:

“The exhibition offers an opportunity to reflect on the collecting practices of the early Medici, up to the time of Lorenzo the Magnificent, drawing on new and previously unpublished scholarly findings. Our aim is to explain the significance of their collecting choices in the light of the political vision that guided the Medici dynasty: to consolidate and extend the power and influence of their family throughout Italy and even beyond the borders of the peninsula.”

Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici, known as Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449–1492), is universally recognised as the most celebrated ruler of the dynasty that governed Florence and Tuscany between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. An astute and accomplished statesman, but above all a passionate champion of culture and the arts, he came to embody the very ideal of artistic patronage. He surrounded himself with some of the most brilliant intellectuals of his age, including Angelo Poliziano, Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, as well as artistic geniuses such as Botticelli and Michelangelo, helping to establish Florence as the undisputed capital of the Renaissance.

Tickets for the exhibition will be available for booking on the Uffizi website from 2 November. The exhibition will be open during Palazzo Pitti’s regular opening hours, Tuesday to Sunday, from 8:15 am to 6:30 pm (last admission at 5:30 pm).

IMAGE CAPTIONS:

Orsino Benintendi
Portrait of Lorenzo de’ Medici, known as Lorenzo the Magnificent
1492
Plaster cast
Treasury of the Grand Dukes, Palazzo Pitti

Alessandro Filipepi, known as Botticelli
Adoration of the Magi
1470–1475
Tempera grassa on panel
Uffizi Galleries

Paolo Uccello
The Battle of San Romano
c. 1435–1440
Tempera on panel
Uffizi Galleries

Petrarch
Works
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Italien 548
© Bibliothèque nationale de France

Sculptor close to Donatello (after a model by the master)
Spiritello (Sprite) (from the fountain at Palazzo Medici)
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Purchase, Mrs. Samuel Reed Gift, Rogers Fund, by exchange, and Louis V. Bell Fund, 1983
Accession no. 1983.356