Palazzo Medici Riccardi hosts an exhibition dedicated to the grand ducal architect and sculptor, Giovan Battista Foggini, from April 10 to September 9. Celebrating the artistic genius of the noted figure, the display promoted by the Metropolitan City of Florence and organized by the MUS.E Foundation was curated by Riccardo Spinelli with the scientific coordination of Valentina Zucchi. Organized on the occasion of the third centenary of the artist’s death, the show intends to divulge awareness of his interdisciplinary work and how he shaped the artistic language of late-Medici Florence.
ph. Nicola Neri
ph. Nicola Neri
ph. Nicola Neri
ph. Nicola Neri
ph. Nicola Neri
Over 80 sculptures, drawings and artefacts trace the career of Foggini, who trained in Rome at the Medici Academy founded by Cosimo III de’ Medici and, upon his return to Florence, became a grand-ducal sculptor, court architect and director of the Manifatture di Galleria. His innovative late Baroque style was influenced by Roman art and defined the image of Florence in the late 17th century.
Palazzo Medici Riccardi, as the first residence of the Medici family, represents the perfect site to celebrate the anniversary, having hosted some of the artist’s most significant works, such as his work on the Galleria degli Specchi frescoed by Luca Giordano and the surrounding rooms of the adjacent Biblioteca Riccardiana, the arrangement of the 15th-century courtyard, the stuccoing of the ground floor loggia in the garden, and the extension of Michelozzo‘s facade on via Cavour.
The exhibition is divided thematically, exploring sculpture in marble, bronze and terracotta, his work as an architect and designer, his role in the production of objects in semiprecious stones and precious metals, and his influence on monumental statuary. Among the works on display are loans from the Louvre Museum in Paris, the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in Minneapolis, the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden, the Uffizi Galleries and the Bargello Museums.
Alongside the main itinerary is a photographic exhibition titled La Firenze di Foggini. Sguardi di Paolo Bacherini, curated by Valentina Zucchi, from an idea by Riccardo Spinelli, set up in the Fabiani Rooms of Palazzo Medici Riccardi. The black and white shots were taken between 2002 and 2003, and portray the buildings designed or decorated by Foggini.
The exhibition is accompanied by a programme of Foggini-related tours of the city, organized by MUS.E and the Florence World Heritage Office and Relations with UNESCO, as well as a series of workshops and guided tours of the exhibition during which the Riccardiana Library and the Moreniana Library can be visited.
Mayor of Florence Sara Funaro commented, “This exhibition dedicated to Giovan Battista Foggini is, in some ways, also a tribute from Palazzo Medici Riccardi to the man who, by designing the new monumental staircase for Francesco Riccardi, saved Benozzo Gozzoli‘s chapel from destruction. The exhibition in Palazzo Medici Riccardi carefully accounts in a timely and chronologically accurate way the entire career of this great artist…Having contracted smallpox at the age of seven, Foggini was marked for his entire life. Despite the weakness in his lower limbs and the persistent effects of the illness, Foggini managed to find the way to express, even as a teenager, his unique artistic ability that makes him a great master of the late Baroque, and beyond.”
