art
January 1, 2022 – 11:47 am
The collection of 78 Russian icons, collected in Florence by the Medici and above all by the Lorraine during the eighteenth century and the following century
from Corriere Fiorentino editorial staff
The religious art of the Great Mother Russia from tomorrow will find a place in the heart of Florence, in the palace of Palazzo Pitti, where it will be permanently exhibited starting from 2 January. The collection of 78 Russian icons, collected in Florence already by the Medici and especially the Lorraine during the eighteenth and the following centuries, the oldest of its kind in the world outside Russia itself, will in fact be exhibited for the first time in a new staging. These are four large rooms with seventeenth-century frescoes overlooking the courtyard on the ground floor of Palazzo Pitti: just restored, these spaces now become part of the normal visit to the palace. The setting up of the museum (designed by Mauro Linari together with Paola Scortichini and Pietro Petull, with lighting by Linari and Claudia Gerola himself, and with the historical-artistic curatorship of Daniela Parenti) marked by lightness and transparency and privilege the ease of reading the icons, (equipped with descriptive captions in Italian, English and Cyrillic), leaving intact the view of the 17th century frescoes that adorn the walls and ceilings. It will be a novelty within the novelty: in fact, before now, these rooms of the Medici Palace, specially restored, have never been regularly open to the public. Even the suggestive, very elegant Palatine Chapel, with the nineteenth-century frescoes by Luigi Ademollo, now fully restored, will be reopened and can be visited every day.
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At Palazzo Pitti the museum of the icons of the Great Mother Russia
Furthermore, on the website of the Uffizi Galleries (www.uffizi.it/mostre-virtuali), you can visit the virtual exhibition curated by Daniela Parenti, curator of medieval and fifteenth-century painting, and of the Russian icons of the Uffizi, La Luce del Sacro: Russian icons at Palazzo Pitti, entirely dedicated to the treasures of this new museum.
On the occasion of the opening of the Museum of Russian Icons, the first video in Russian (with subtitles) is also published on the Uffizi website (www.uffizi.it/video-storie). This is an introduction to the historic Pitti Palace collection by Zelfira Tregulova, director of the Tret’yakovskaja Gallery in Moscow, the museum with the largest and most important collection of Russian icons in the world.
The collection
The Russian icons of the Uffizi Galleries were all painted between the late sixteenth and mid-eighteenth centuries. The oldest specimens belonged to the Grand Dukes of the Medici family and are already mentioned around the middle of the 17th century in the inventories of the furnishings of the Chapel of the Relics of Palazzo Pitti. The largest group, on the other hand, arrived in Florence during the reign of Francesco Stefano di Lorena (1737-1765). Taken as a whole, this collection of Russian icons – documented at Palazzo Pitti in 1761 – is the oldest preserved outside the territories of ancient Rus’, an entity that roughly coincides with the territories of western Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. . The oldest examples in the collection, made between the 16th and 17th centuries, can be traced back to painters who worked for the court of the tsars in the Kremlin Armory Palace in Moscow, the main center of reference for the art and production of this type of works before the founding of the new capital St. Petersburg. Many of the icons of the early decades of the eighteenth century are also inspired by models of the Moscow school, but were most likely made in provincial workshops in central Russia. These are mostly medium and small icons intended for domestic and personal devotion. There are also some whose execution was probably due to masters active in Kostroma and Jaroslavl, ancient cities on the Volga River north of Moscow. For a few years, at the end of the eighteenth century, the entire collection was exhibited in the Uffizi Gallery as a testimony of Byzantine painting, in the context of the rediscovery of Christian antiquities. However, in 1796 many specimens were removed from the exhibition and largely relegated to the Medici villa of Castello, where they remained until the beginning of the twentieth century. In more recent years, various attempts have been made to reinsert the collection in the city’s museum itineraries, first in Palazzo Pitti, then in the Accademia Gallery, but they had never been successful.
The most important works
Among the most valuable works of the collection, the two panels that make up the Menologio, the calendar of Orthodox religious holidays divided by semesters, are worth mentioning: each panel consists of twenty horizontal rows with sacred scenes and figures of saints, each identified by a registration. The icon with Saint Catherine of Alexandria, datable to 1693-1694 thanks to the punch in the oklad of gilded silver (the metallic coating that covers some parts of the icons). The martyr princess depicted with attributes very similar to those depicted in Western art: the palm and wheel of martyrdom, the books and the armillary sphere alluding to her vast knowledge. The work attributed to the atelier of the Armory Palace, the workshop that worked at the Tsar’s court in the Kremlin palace in Moscow, is similar to the style of Kiril Ulanov, one of the best known masters between the 17th and 18th centuries. The author, Vasilij Grjaznov, who signs the icon of the Mother of God of Tikhvin, dated July 16, 1728, is known of only one example of the Florentine collection. It is a replica of the miraculous image that according to tradition appeared in 1383 a Tikhvin, in the Novgorod Territory. In the painting, the date inscribed according to the Western system, introduced in Russia by Tsar Peter the Great (1672-1725) together with the Arabic numerals and the Julian calendar, replacing the Byzantine one in use until then. The oldest examples in the collection are the icon depicting the Mother of God, of the type called “In you every creature rejoices”, and the one with the Beheading of the Baptist. Their arrival in Florence linked to the Medici collection. The two icons were in fact part of the liturgical objects preserved in the chapel of the Relics in Palazzo Pitti as early as 1639, at the time of the reign of Ferdinand II de ‘Medici and his wife Vittoria della Rovere.
The director of the Uffizi Galleries Eike Schmidt: “With the inauguration of the Museum of Russian Icons, which coincides with the daily and permanent accessibility of the Palatine Chapel, now returned to its splendor thanks to skilful lighting, a great step forward is taken towards the opening to the public of all the frescoed rooms on the ground floor of Palazzo Pitti: wonderful environments, formerly inhabited by the Grand Dukes, unfortunately still used today largely as offices and service areas. The collection of Florentine icons is distinguished from the others by the fact that it is mainly composed of small and medium-sized specimens, intended for the private devotion of families and to be taken on trips. The proximity of the Russian icons to the Palatine Chapel becomes a metaphor for a confessional bridge between Orthodox and Catholics that recalls the common spiritual roots and the frequent cultural exchanges between Italy and Russia that took place over the centuries and still persist ”.
Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Italy Sergey Razov: “Russian icons represent a fundamental patrimony of Russian culture, they contain in them the spiritual experience of the Russian people and the Orthodox Church. Thanks to the collecting of the Grand Dukes of Florence, today for its inhabitants, as well as for the guests of the city from all over the world, there is a unique opportunity to get in touch with the brilliant examples of Russian iconographic art and to obtain the keys to reading of the spiritual and ethical roots of all Russian culture. I am convinced that this permanent exhibition will become an event of great value for our intense dialogue in the field of culture and will encourage all admirers of Russian art to come to our country and visit churches, temples and Orthodox monasteries where magnificent examples of the orthodox figurative art. I wish the Uffizi Gallery new interesting projects and prosperity, while for its guests wonderful discoveries in the world of Russian iconography ”.
The president of the Tuscany Region Eugenio Giani: “the association that binds the city of Florence to Russia is ancient, a strong bond through history. For example, the Demidoffs had their magnificent villa built on the ruins of the Medici residence in Pratolino. The very important collection of Uffizi icons is a testimony of this bond, and being able to let tourists from all over the world admire it in its splendor and completeness, can only be a point of pride and confirmation of unequivocal signs of a fruitful and profound relationship. that has bound them and binds them to our history “.
The curator of the Russian Icons of the Uffizi Galleries Daniela Parenti: “The exhibition of the collection of Russian icons responds to today’s need to expand the cultural offer for an increasingly heterogeneous public eager to explore lesser-known contexts. At the same time, the return of Russian icons to Palazzo Pitti marks a further step forward in understanding the vastness of the Grand Ducal collecting interests, both in the Medici and Lorraine periods ”.
January 1, 2022 | 11:47
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