Halls of the early Renaissance, Uffizi Gallery

Unparalleled is the core of early Renaissance painting, from the twenties of the fifteenth to the middle of the century. The elaboration of the new language is testified by the Sant’Anna Metterza (1424) by Masolino and Masaccio in room 7: by Masaccio the sculptural child and the Virgin, painted with a solemn body so austere and realistic that it can no longer be defined as “Gothic” “. In the same room are the Battle of San Romano by Paolo Uccello, which bears witness to his perspective “obsession”, and the works of Beato Angelico and Domenico Veneziano that indicate the search for new formats for altarpieces and the birth of ” light painting “.

Room 7 First Renaissance
Their grouping, as well as the aesthetic emotion, produces a strong didactic effect because all the paintings, despite the diversity of themes and formal characteristics, are an expression of the culture of humanity, the rediscovery of the old, the search for a previously defined space.

Masaccio in Sant’Anna Metterza, work of collaboration with Masolino, represents a new humanity, austere and solemn, like those found on the walls of the Brancacci Chapel in the Church of Santa María del Carmine.

The exaltation of man, expressed through his virtues, very marked in the portrait of the Dukes of Urbino by Piero della Francesca.

The Battle of Paolo Uccello shows us an original interpretation of perspective and a fairytale feeling.

In the Altarpiece of Saint Lucia de’Magnoli Domenico Veneziano creates one of the first altarpieces in the new rectangular format. Perhaps for the first time, it eliminates the golden background of medieval tradition, the sacred characters appear immersed in a clear morning light.

Room 8 Of the Lippi
The large room 8 is dedicated to Filippo Lippi, developer of Masaccio’s proposals and ferryman of Florentine art to that “primacy of design” that was its most typical feature. Here there is also the extraordinary Double portrait of the dukes of Urbino by Piero della Francesca, one of the most famous icons of Renaissance aesthetics. The exhibition is completed by the works of Alesso Baldovinetti and the son of Lippi, Filippino, who was a break artist at the end of the fifteenth century.

Filippo Lippi, a Carmelite friar, was trained as a man and artist in the Florentine convent of Carmine, in direct contact with the frescoes of Masaccio and Masolino.

The influence of the latter was important for the artist in his youth, during the years Filippo showed great attention to the evolution of contemporary Florentine sculpture, in particular the production of Donatello and Luca della Robbia.

Flemish painting acquired a taste for precious materials with extraordinary efficiency, as we can see in the Coronation of the Virgin or in the Virgin and Child and two angels, one of the most famous paintings in the gallery.

In the hall there are some masterpieces of Filippino, such as the great altarpiece with the Adoration of the Magi, and the works of Alesso Baldovinetti.

Room 9 Of the Pollaiolo
Room 9 is dedicated to brothers of Pollaiolo, Antonio and Piero, among the first to practice an agile and agile contour line, which was a model for many later artists. In the series of Virtues created for the Court of Merchandise, one stands out for its formal elegance: it is the Fortress, among the early works of the young Botticelli (1470).

The room contains most of the paintings of the brothers Antonio and Piero Pollaiolo, interpreters in the second half of the Quattrocento of a painting of strong linear emphasis, but also very attentive to the suggestions of Flemish painting, as attested by two of his works teachers, the female portrait of Antonio, and the altarpiece of San Jaime, San Vicente and San Eustaquio (Retablo del cardenal de Portugal), work of collaboration between the two.

There are also the seven tables with Virtues, six of which were executed by Piero Pollaiolo and the seventh, which represents the Fortress, the work of Sandro Botticelli, at an early age.

Uffizi Gallery

The Gallery entirely occupies the first and second floors of the large building constructed between 1560 and 1580 and designed by Giorgio Vasari. It is famous worldwide for its outstanding collections of ancient sculptures and paintings (from the Middle Ages to the Modern period). The collections of paintings from the 14th-century and Renaissance period include some absolute masterpieces: Giotto, Simone Martini, Piero della Francesca, Beato Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, Mantegna, Correggio, Leonardo, Raffaello, Michelangelo and Caravaggio, in addition to many precious works by European painters (mainly German, Dutch and Flemish).

Moreover, the Gallery boasts an invaluable collection of ancient statues and busts from the Medici family, which adorns the corridors and consists of ancient Roman copies of lost Greek sculptures.