Blog

Summary of these posts so far:

• The first three posts in this series provided some general information for travel: answers to questions I wish I’d known enough to ask before I went to Italy. The first, on planning, packing, and flights, is here. The second, on car rentals and driving in Italy, is here. The third is on Italian restaurants and the hotel we stayed at, here.
• The Academy (Michelangelo’s David), visiting museums in general, and trains to Florence: here.
• Florence’s Cathedral, a.k.a. the Duomo, markets in Florence, restrooms, and footwork: here.
• Museo dell’Opera dell Duomo, with a few words on the Baptistery and Campanile: here.
• Uffizi Gallery, Loggia dei Lanzi, and a few more words on parking in Florence: here.
• Museo dell’ Opificio delle Pietre Dure (inlay in semi-precious stones): here.

If you want a dose of Renaissance sculpture (15th-16th centuries), the Bargello is the best museum in the world. Although the Uffizi has a lot of sculpture, much of it is Roman works collected by the Medici (1st-4th c. AD), rather than Renaissance works.

The Bargello

The Bargello – the oldest public building in Florence – looks like a castle from a kid’s picture book, with that tower and those crenellations. It was, in fact, built in the 13th century, when it made sense to put the office of the city’s chief magistrate inside a fortress. There was even a well in the center of the courtyard, in case of a siege.

Under the Medici, the Bargello became headquarters of the chief of police and a prison. Criminals were executed in the courtyard until 1786. In 1865 – soon after Italy was unified, putting an end to constant fighting between city-states – the Bargello was transformed into a museum for sculpture and decorative arts.

The Bargello is to Renaissance sculpture what the Uffizi is to Renaissance painting. But the buildings are very different. The Uffizi’s interior has been upgraded to preserve paintings, with top-notch humidity and light control. Strolling in its galleries, you might be in almost any modern European or American museum. Sculptures are less vulnerable to environmental changes. In the Bargello, the walls, the ceilings, and the floors are mostly original.

I’m extraordinarily fond of elegant wrought iron (see here, for example). In Florence, you never know when you’ll walk around a street corner and find a brilliant example such as the sconce above, in the Bargello’s courtyard.

The Bargello’s courtyard (open to the elements) is home to a couple “minor” pieces that would be show-stoppers elsewhere. Below: a cannon commissioned in 1638 by Ferdinando II de’ Medici. It bears the head of St. Paul on the end, Medici arms on top, and assorted figurative reliefs. I’ve seen rifles and handguns that were almost literally works of art, but I’ve never seen another cannon this elaborately decorated.

1st floor

Moving on to the interior of the first floor: isn’t this a lovely space? The works in the Michelangelo Room are mostly from the 16th century.

This room has two very early works by Michelangelo: the Bacchus and the Pitti Tondo.

But the Michelangelo work that fascinates is the Brutus, 1539-1540. In Dante’s Divine Comedy, Brutus is with Judas in the lowest circle of hell, tortured by Satan for murdering Julius Caesar, Brutus’s friend and benefactor. (“Et tu, Brute?”) But during the Renaissance, Brutus was admired for attempting to save the Roman Republic by killing a tyrant.

Michelangelo shows both sides of Brutus. In profile, the face is classically handsome. Looked at full on, though, it’s asymmetrical and rather ugly. Brutus looks brutal. Michelangelo probably had mixed feelings about Brutus as well as about his patrons, the Medici. Although he created magnificent works for the Medici (such as the sculptures in the Medici Chapel at San Lorenzo in Florence, coming up in a later post), Michelangelo was also strongly opposed to tyranny. By the 1530s, the Medici had been sidling over the line into tyranny line for decades.

The first floor of the Bargello has one more spectacular work: Giambologna’s Mercury.

2nd floor

Climbing up a long, outdoor flight of stairs in the courtyard leads you to the Donatello room, with art of the 15th century – i.e., the early Renaissance. Here’s a view with several of my favorite guys: Donatello’s Marzocco, David, and St. George, plus my husband.

There are more Donatello sculptures in this room than anywhere else in the world. The one below, of Florentine statesman Niccolo da Uzzano, is sometimes attributed to Donatello, sometimes to his follower Desiderio da Settignano.

Desiderio has brilliant technique: see this bust, for example. But in Uzzano, the lift and turn of the chin are so different from anything done before in a portrait bust that I’d bet it’s Donatello’s work. Radical innovation is very much Donatello’s thing. See Innovators in Sculpture, Ch. 8.

Among the other treasures in this room are the reliefs of the Sacrifice of Isaac done in 1501-1402 by Ghiberti and Brunelleschi, in the competition for Florence’s Baptistery doors. Both are in late Gothic style. Twenty-one-year-old Ghiberti won the competition, and went on to spend 48 years creating the north and east doors for the Baptistery. (They’re now on display at the Museo dell’ Opera del Duomo; copies are on the Baptistery.) Brunelleschi lost the competition for the Baptistery doors, but in 1420 won the competition for building the Cathedral’s dome. From then until 1436, he designed and supervised construction of the dome, which has dominated the city’s skyline ever since. He also kicked off the Renaissance in architecture by designing numerous buildings in Florence. I, for one, am glad Brunelleschi lost the competition for the Baptistery doors.

On the other side of the second floor at the Bargello is a gallery full of decorative arts. I could get lost in there for a couple hours, looking at the details of works such as this game board with chess squares on one side, backgammon on the other.

3rd floor

I’d seen the Donatello room and the Michelangelo room. When my husband said, “There’s a third floor, you know,” I almost didn’t make the climb. But as with the Uffizi, the less-famous rooms at the Bargello have works that would be the envy of museums elsewhere.

There’s a wonderful collection of coins and medals. I don’t know much about numismatics, but I can appreciate the workmanship that goes into design and execution on such a small scale. The Aristotle medal below is about 3″ high.

The third floor also a display of weapons that are almost as remarkable as the cannon down in the courtyard. Above: a pistol that fired multiple shots. How do you holster that?

The third floor also has some lovely ceramic busts and reliefs by the della Robbias, and a couple other portrait busts that are famous enough for the art-history books. Far left below: a Verrocchio bust from 1475-1480. It’s one of the earliest busts to have include hands – a great way to suggest character. The Bernini bust of Costanza Bonarelli, ca. 1637-1638, has a passionate look, appropriate since the sitter was Bernini’s lover. On Bernini’s innovations in sculpture, see Innovators in Sculpture Chs. 10-11.

And finally, on the right above: a cardinal of the Medici family, ca. 1650, sculpted by Giovanni Gennelli. It’s very, very unusual in the Renaissance or Baroque period to find a portrait sculpture of a figure who’s smiling. I love the fact that this one is.

Next up in this series: Medici Chapel and Chapel of the Princes in San Lorenzo.

More

• What I didn’t spot (I didn’t realize I should be looking!): 17th-c. chairs with needlework that gave the name to the needlepoint pattern called Bargello style.
• After 7 years, I’m ending my Sunday Recommendations. For examples of favorite recommendations from past years, click here. My next project is Timeline 1700-1900, which will appear decade by decade on Substack. Subscribe to my Substack site to read and discuss the Timeline, or follow me to hear about my current work.