Scholars

The Collection of Master Drawers. The Hotbed of Invention

The Heritage of the Library and Archive

From documentation to art photography. A rich and valuable collection of images from the invention of photography to the present day

The lists are available in pdf format on this page

Notes on a Research Project on the Conditions of Artistic Production, Modes of Reception and Systems of Organisation in the Context of an Early Modern ‘Special Collection’

82 ancient drawings and 25 etchings

The most important news from the latest diagnostic surveys: the evidence of the painter's ambidexterity and the discovery of a second landscape on the back

Baroque painter and printmaker Elisabetta Sirani (1638-1665) was one of Bologna's most innovative and influential artists, especially on the women artists of the city. Considered by her contemporaries as the "best brush in Bologna" and an established "maestro", she developed an elegant and expressive style. This article will examine Elisabetta's artistic agency and legacy: her promotion to head of the Sirani workshop and establishment of an art school for girls; and propose some new attributions.

The idea of digitising the restoration documents for the ancient sculptures in the Uffizi, using SICaR goes back to 2014. SICaR is an open-source software that makes it possible to collect, organise and consult, online, all types of documents about an intervention, with the added possibility of being able to map the information on a measurable 2D image of a sculpture.

The article reconstructs the significance and structure of the theory behind the Medici-Lorraine busts which have been on display in the antiricetto of the Gallery of Statues and Paintings since the 1880’s, each one accompanied by an encomiastic text (from the Latin term elogium) regarding the contribution to the development of the museum and its collections. This display came about thanks to the Grand Duke of Tuscany Peter Leopold to honour the by then extinct Medici family in a period in which the study of pictorial history began to reflect on a period in Florentine history that had come to an end. Over time the number of portraits and the order in which they are displayed has undergone changes, eventually losing the original meaning of the Gallery’s emblematic ‘historical introduction’. The early years of the twentieth century saw a loss of esteem for Cosimo III and the elimination of his portrait once it had been ascertained that the bust did not really portray him. The discovery of the absence of this ‘forgotten Grand Duke’ from the collection of portraits, which are still exhibited in the same area, was the starting point of this analysis. In the appendix, for the first time, there are explanatory notes and a translation of the descriptions of each portrait.

Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raffaello in the new arrangement on the second floor of the Uffizi

The publication of the reproductions of I Disegni della R. Galleria (The Drawings of the Royal Gallery) was launched in 1912 by Giovanni Poggi, the then Director of the Uffizi Gallery. He entrusted the task to the renowned book collector Leo Samuel Olschki, who went on to complete the work in 1921. To encourage sales of the so-called “Portafogli Olschki” and recuperate the initial costs, a connection was forged between the published reproductions and the annual exhibitions.

Archival research and meticulous stylistic studies have led to the complete reinterpretation of a painting of the Uffizi Galleries. Previously believed to be a portrait of a member of the Medici family by the hand of late sixteenth-century painter Jacopo Ligozzi, the work has now been identified as a fictional representation of the “Queen of Armenia”, realized almost a century later by artist Mario Balassi.

The Niches Room of Pitti Palace hosts an exhibition dedicated to Anton Raphael Mengs and his relationships with Florence. Painted by Mengs in Florence and today preserved in the Prado Museum, the three portraits of the children of Pietro Leopoldo of Habsburg-Lorraine and Maria Luisa of Bourbon are shown alongside the portrait of Ferdinand and Maria Anna recently acquired by the Uffizi Galleries. Around this central group are other portraits of the Habsburg-Lorraine family by other painters one of whom, Johan Zoffany, particularly stands out. The self-portraits of both these artists from the Uffizi collection are also present. The exhibition also includes two letters from Mengs and a manuscript dedicated to Correggio and to his works, written by the painter during his stay in Florence.

A book about the Jovian portraits collection of the Uffizi

Il museo acquista 270 disegni della celebre officina romana Valadier