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Money and beauty. Bankers, Botticelli and the bonfire of vanities in Florence

From September 23rd, 2011 to January 22nd, 2012 the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence will house the exhibition Money and beauty. Bankers, Botticelli and the bonfire of vanities.

Masterpieces by Botticelli, Filippo Lippi, Beato Angelico, Paolo Uccello, Donatello, Antonio del Pollaiolo, Domenico Veneziano and Lorenzo di Credi – the cream of Renaissance artists – show how the modern banking system developed in parallel alongside the most important artistic flowering in the history of the Western world. The exhibition also explores the links between that unique interweave of high finance, economy and art, and the religious and political upheavals of the time.

Money and Beauty.  From Bankers to Botticelli and the Bonfires of the Vanities recounts the birth of our modern banking system and of the economic boom that it triggered, providing a reconstruction of European life and the continent’s economy from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance.  Visitors can delve into the daily life of the families that controlled the banking system and perceive the ongoing clash between spiritual and economic values that was such a feature of it.  The saga of the art patrons is closely linked to that of the bankers who financed the ventures of princes and nobles alike, and indeed it was that very convergence that provided the humus in which some of the leading artists of the time were able to flourish.

The exhibition takes the visitor on a journey to the roots of Florentine power in Europe, but it also explores the economic mechanisms which allowed the Florentines to dominate the world of trade and business 500 years before modern communication methods were invented, and in so doing, to finance the Renaissance.  The exhibition analyses the systems that bankers used to build up their immense fortunes, it illustrates the way in which they handled international relations and it also sheds light on the birth of modern art patronage, which frequently began as a penitential gesture only to then turn into a tool for wielding power.

Curated by writer and translator Tim Parks, author of Medici Money - Banking, Metaphysics and Art in Fifteenth-century Florence, and by art historian Ludovica Sebregondi, the exhibition aims to provide the visitor with an opportunity to look at art from a cross-disciplinary perspective involving economists, politicians and diplomats, and to examine the story of how the Florentine Renaissance began from the standpoint of the (open, but more often hidden) relationship between art, power and money.  Hence its title: Money and Beauty.
Crucial to the illustration of this story are the masterpieces created for the great banking families, while the trajectory of Florence’s great families, rocked by financial setbacks, drew to a close with the political and religious storm triggered by Savonarola.  With his "bonfires of the vanities", the Dominican friar rejected everything that the Renaissance had stood for, even though he was part and parcel of it himself.  A multimedia reconstruction illustrates and interprets the bonfires’ significance and content.

The exhibition also uses the detailed depiction of episodes in bankers’ daily lives (the work of several leading Flemish artists) to illustrate the era when Florence was the financial capital of the world, and an array of multimedia tools help the visitor to get a clear perception of the ways in which trade was conducted and money travelled throughout the known world at the time.
 
Opening times: daily 9,00-20,00, Thurdays 9,00-23,00
Last admission to the exhibition 1 hour before closing
 
Bookings
Sigma CSC
Tel. +39 055 2469600
Fax. +39 055 244145
prenotazioni@cscsigma.it

For further information: +39 055/2645155

Address:
Piazza Strozzi, 50123 Florence (FI)

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD - Damien Hirst in Florence

For the Love of God, the skull studded with diamonds realised by English artist Damien Hirst, which has become legendary since it was displayed for the first time in 2007, will be on view at Palazzo Vecchio, in Florence, from 26th November 2010 to 1st May 2011.
For the Love of God is a platinum life-size model of a human skull studded with 8,601 absolutely pure and almost flawless diamonds, for a total of 1,106,18 carats. A large pear-shaped pink diamond is located in the forehead, also known as the “star of the skull”, while the teeth were taken from a real 18th-century skull bought by Hirst in London.
The diamond skull has no precedents in the history of art. From a certain point of view, the work represents a traditional “memento mori”, an object which deals with the transitoriness of the human existence. As the Dutch art historian Rudi Fuchs says: “The skull is out of this world, almost celestial. It proclaims victory over decay. At the same time, it represents death as something infinitely more relentless. Compared to the tearful sadness of a vanitas scene, the diamond skull is pure glory”.

Uffizi Gallery

This is one of the most famous museums of paintings and sculpture in the world. Its collection of Primitive and Renaissance paintings comprises several universally acclaimed masterpieces of all time, including works by Giotto, Simone Martini, Piero della Francesca, Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, Mantegna, Correggio, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo and Caravaggio. German, Dutch and Flemish masters are also well represented with important works by Dürer, Rembrandt and Rubens.
The Uffizi Gallery occupies the top floor of the large building erected by Giorgio Vasari between 1560 and 1580 to house the administrative offices of the Tuscan State. The Gallery was created by Grand-duke Francesco I and subsequently enriched by various members of the Medici family, who were great collectors of
paintings, sculpture and works of art. The collection was rearranged and enlarged by the Lorraine Grand-dukes, who succeeded the Medici, and finally by the Italian State.
The Uffizi buildings also house other important collections: the Contini Bonacossi Collection and the Collection of Prints and Drawings (Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi).
The Vasari Corridor, the raised passageway connecting the Uffizi with the Pitti Palace, was built by Vasari in 1565. It is hung with an important collection of 17th-century paintings and the famous collection of artists’ Self-portraits.

Felix Nadar & Co. at the Marino Marini Museum in Florence from 13th October 2010 at 10:00 a.m. to 09th November 2010 at 05:00 p.m.

From 13.10.2010 to 09.11.2010 is open in Florence the  at the Marino Marini Museum.

More than 40 photo-portraits shot by the French photographer Felix Nadar - and selected out of the mediatheque de l’architecture et du patrimoine will be shown at the Museo Marino Marini, beside recent works by contemporary artists who tribute an homage to him and his portfolio.

Among the artists invited, just to name a few, Frank Horvat, Gabriele Basilico, Bernard Plossu, Jean-Patrick Gueritaud, Pierre Grech, Francesco Zizola, Julia Fullerton-Batten, Agnès Geoffray, Samantha Appleton, Alexandra Auffret, Chen Man.

From the 21st to the 23rd of October, in parallel to the Festival della Creatività, the exhibition will be open to the general public free of charge.

Opened:
Monday: 10.00 am - 5.00 pm
Wed - Sat: 10.00 am - 5.00 pm

Closed on Tuesday, Sunday and on public holidays.


Tickets:
adults: € 4
children, seniors: € 2