Gli Uffizi

The 18th Century is back at the Uffizi Gallery: a decade later, an important exhibition revives it

The ‘Age of Enlightenment’ (and of reforms) is narrated through some 150 works set up in the ground floor rooms of the Gallery, with masterpieces by Goya, Tiepolo, Canaletto, Vigée Le Brun, Liotard, and Mengs: many never seen before, others hidden for over a decade due to the work to extend the exhibition route.

And not only that: there is also the impressive painting by the French master Pierre Subleyras, recently acquired and ‘restored live’ during the exhibition. And more: the Cabinet of Erotic Antiquities, reconstructed according to the fashion of the time, and spectacular views painted of iconic places on the Grand Tour.

Director Simone Verde: “We tell the story of a complex century through its aesthetic culture and at the same time the transformation of the Uffizi Galleries into Europe’s first modern museum”.

Masterpieces by Goya, Tiepolo, Canaletto, Le Brun, Liotard, Mengs and many other masters; spectacular views of iconic places of the Grand Tour in Italy; the monumental Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine by French painter Pierre Subleyras, restored live on display before the public’s eyes; the sensual curiosities of the Cabinet of Erotic Antiquities reconstructed according to the fashion of the Age of Enlightenment. The Uffizi Galleries bring the 18th century back to life with an impressive exhibition titled “Florence and Europe. Arts of the Eighteenth Century at the Uffizi”, curated by the director Simone Verde and the head of Eighteenth-Century Painting Alessandra Griffo, and set up from today until 28 November in the airy frescoed rooms on the ground floor of the museum. A careful selection of around 150 works, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, porcelain, prints, and a large tapestry, many exhibited for the first time in the Gallery, and others that have not been accessible for more than ten years due to the museum’s extension works.

The aim of the exhibition is to recount, through art, an era of crucial changes for Western thought, aesthetics, and taste, and also for the Uffizi itself, which, in the 18th century, was completely transformed from a dynastic treasure chest of royal collections into a modern museum, the first in the world. It was precisely at this time, in fact, that the pact established by the last Medici descendant, Anna Maria Luisa, certifying the end of the dynasty in 1737, bound the boundless store of works to Florence “for the ornament of the State”; and it was Pietro Leopoldo, Grand Duke of Tuscany, who in 1769 allowed citizens, on the feast day of Florence’s patron saint, St. John (24 June), to visit the museum freely. Structural changes intertwined with the great wave of political, cultural, and aesthetic transformations throughout Europe, which the Grand Dukes in Florence managed to intercept with the Uffizi Galleries, transforming the city and the museum into a microcosm where the new climate of the Continent could be felt.

The Director of the Uffizi Galleries, Simone Verde: “‘Florence and Europe’ aims to trace an extremely multifaceted century through its aesthetic culture, interweaving the general narrative of the context with the management of the Uffizi Galleries as Europe’s first modern museum. It’s a complex story rich in subtexts and nuances that we have constructed with patience and dedication, making works from the collection that have not been seen for many years, or have never been exhibited, available to the public”.

The curator of the 18th-century Painting of the Uffizi Galleries, Alessandra Griffo: “The works on display, besides being of great quality, have the merit of offering insights into a century that was crucial for the formation of the modern mentality, sensibility and even taste. Today, millions of people come to Florence every year, attracted by the myth of the early Renaissance: the rediscovery of this period occurred precisely during the 18th century”.