Botticelli’s paintings return to the Accademia Gallery in Florence

Two paintings attributed to Sandro Botticelli will return from their trips abroad in the next few days. Returning to the Gallery is the Madonna and Child John the Baptist and two angels loaned to the Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum in Innsbruck for the exhibition dedicated to Botticelli’s Madonnas which ended on 30 January. Dated 1468, it is an early work by the Renaissance painter who, while remaining tied to the style of his masters, such as Verrocchio and Filippo Lippi, showed a desire to break free from the illustrious models.

The Trebbio Altarpiece also returns to the Gallery, on display until 24 January in the major exhibition dedicated by the Jacquemart-André Museum in Paris to Botticelli’s workshop, celebrating the genius of the artist and the activity of his atelier. The painting, so called because it comes from the oratory of the Medici Castle of Trebbio, in the countryside north of Florence, depicts the Madonna and Child surrounded by the saints most dear to the Medici family: San Lorenzo and the martyred saints Cosmas and Damian, all recurring names in the noble Florentine family. A loan that is part of a relationship of mutual cooperation with other international institutions, always in line with the international exchanges also desired by the MiC – Ministry of Culture and which will see, next 15 February, the bust of Michelangelo, belonging to the collection of the Parisian museum, arrive at the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence for the exhibition that will collect, for the first time, the nine bronze effigies attributed to Daniele da Volterra portraying Michelangelo Buonarroti.

These paintings return just in time to reunite with the other works in the new exhibition in the Sala del Colosso, which will be inaugurated on 7 February.

“The activities of the Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze are always in great turmoil,” says director Cecilie Hollberg, “both in terms of collaborations with prestigious European and international institutions and for the major renovation, maintenance, refurbishment, lighting and air-conditioning of the rooms, which have never stopped despite the critical period of the pandemic and which have seen the museum engaged in major renovation works.”

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