A beautiful 1913 black-and-white photograph showing Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa on display in the Uffizi is the centrepiece of the ‘Ieri: I Musei’ exhibition currently in the Sala del Camino, part of the Vasari Corridor.
The exhibition features about 50 photographs taken by employees of the City’s photography department, which was established in 1904, as well as earlier material. The works reveal changes in the display of the artworks in the Uffizi, the Accademia, Palazzo Pitti’s Modern Art Gallery, the San Marco Museum and the Cenacolo di San Salvi between the late nineteenth century and the 1920s.
In addition to Leonardo’s masterpiece, which was temporarily displayed in the Uffizi after being stolen from the Louvre and being discovered in Florence, the show includes a staging of the Tribune of David, in the Accademia, and a strange display of columns in the San Domenico cloister in the San Marco Museum.
It was no easy job to photograph museum spaces in the nineteenth century: cameras were unwieldy affairs, and glass plates, not film, were still in use; moreover, photographers had to spent inordinate amounts of time in the rooms, which had low lighting to preserve the artwork. The early photographs in the exhibition offer evocative images of vast, silent and melancholy spaces in contrast with today’s colourful crowds.
Curated by the head of the Photography Department of Florence’s state museums, Marilena Tamassia, the exhibition will be open until February 1 (Tuesday to Sunday, 8:15am–6:50pm.) Entrance is included in the Uffizi ticket.
