The Uffizi has acquired one of the oldest Florentine panoramas in existence, a rare print of the Renaissance city.
The print was bought from an antiquarian in California. Composed of three sheets of paper, it stands 36 centimetres high and 1.30 metres wide. The print, a combination of engraving and etching, was executed in 1557 by brothers Lucas and Jan Van Doetecum, at the Antwerp printing house of Hieronymus Cock.
The print is a snapshot of Florence in 1557. The Duomo, Palazzo Vecchio, Palazzo Pitti and the basilicas of Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croce are all visible, but the Duomo and Santa Croce lack their façades. We see the church of San Pier Scheraggio, which disappeared when work began on the Uffizi in 1560; and the old city walls, which were demolished in 1865 to make way for Giuseppe Poggi’s urban renovations.
The newly acquired print published by Hieronymus Cock in 1557
The word FLORENTIA is written along the top of the print, between two putti who bear the Medici crest. The bottom-right corner, meanwhile, frames an encomiastic Latin text which cites four of Florence’s most famous sons, all poets: Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio and Angelo Poliziano.
The print, which is the second oldest printed panorama of Florence that we know of, has been added to the Uffizi’s Department of Prints and Drawings collection. From the original plate only one other print survives, which is kept in Stockholm in the Kungliga Biblioteket, Sweden’s national library.
