World – L’Allegory of Fertility by Luca Signorelli rediscovers the marble group of Three satyrs struggling with a snakefrom the collection of Lorenzo the Magnificent lost at the end of the fifteenth century and on loan from a private collection in Chicago.
A drawing by Filippino Lippi inspired by ancient motifs dialogues with a Roman urn, while some panels from a wedding chest in the Uffizi Galleries, depicting Stories of Esther and Ahasuerus, meet a bust of San Giovanni Battista by Benedetto da Rovezzano.
It happens at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, a museum that boasts one of the most important collections of European art overseas, and where from October 16 to January 8 the exhibition Botticelli and Renaissance Florence: Masterworks from the Uffizicreated by the Uffizi Galleries in collaboration with the Minneapolis Institute of Art, curated by Cecilia Frosinini and Rachel McGarry, will explore the relationship between Botticelli, the art of the Florentine Renaissance and classical antiquity.

Biagio D’Antonio, Justice, Botticelli and Renaissance Florence: Masterworks from the Uffizi | Courtesy of the Uffizi Galleries

Loans from the Uffizi that include works by Botticelli and his contemporary artists will encounter paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings from the American museum.
“After the difficult years of the pandemic, which saw Minneapolis at the center of an epochal revolt for social justice and after the suffering caused by Covid – reads a note – the Renaissance exhibition that attributes the role of engine to Florence in the fifteenth century for world culture, it acquires a particularly profound meaning, and sounds like a wish for recovery, especially in America and in this city “.

Part of the proceeds from the exhibition were used to restore the works of art and carry out new research, conducted over the course of over two years. These results have merged into a catalog full of contributions from leading Italian and foreign scholars on the subject. Thanks to the volume it is now possible to learn more about the artists’ workshops, the role of theater and city festivals in the iconography ofAdoration of the Magion portraits, while a revision of Botticelli’s activity has been proposed based on sources and documents reconsidered in a new light.

Botticelli and Renaissance Florence: Masterworks from the Uffizi, Roman torso, Staging | Courtesy of the Uffizi Galleries

But there is more. An important and discussed portrait today in Minneapolis has been definitively attributed to Benedetto Ghirlandaio, as well as the portrait of a religious on the roof of the Uffizi, attributed to the famous brother Domenico.

“The exhibition – comments the director of the Uffizi Galleries, Eike Schmidt – is not only a revelation for the American public, but is also characterized by its very high scientific level. Thanks to the contributions of the archaeologists and art historians involved, as well as the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, it was possible to reconsider each work and arrive at new identifications and attributions on even very famous paintings and sculptures. Perhaps one of the most exciting and revealing combinations is that betweenAllegory of Fertility by Luca Signorelli and the marble group with Three satyrs wrestling with a snake, coming from the collection of antiquities of Lorenzo the Magnificent, dispersed at the end of the fifteenth century. The work, which was in an Austrian collection in the nineteenth century, which reappeared on the market a few years ago, was bought by a private individual from Chicago. Next to it, Luca Signorelli’s monochrome takes on a new meaning and explains at a glance the whole complex topic of the relationship between the Renaissance and Antiquity ”.

Botticelli and Renaissance Florence: Masterworks from the Uffizi, Tre Satiri Installation | Courtesy of the Uffizi Galleries

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