Culture
Special opening at the Accademia Gallery in Florence
Italy – THE EUROPEAN NIGHT OF MUSEUMS is back. On Saturday 13 May, the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence will be extraordinarily open in the evening, from 7 to 10 p.m., with an entrance ticket at the symbolic cost of 1 euro. This initiative involves the museums of the MiC – Ministry of Culture, as well as the most important institutions in Europe,
This is a unique opportunity to enjoy all the permanent collections housed in the museum, which range from the 13th to the 19th century, thanks also to the Gallery’s new state-of-the-art LED lighting. A light, which precisely with the darkness of the night leaking through the skylight, caresses Michelangelo Buonarroti’s sculptural works, exalting their modelling, especially the “unfinished” of the Prigioni that accompany the public, as if they were in the nave of a church, towards the Tribuna and its David.
It will be possible to admire a splendid array of gold backgrounds, among the most significant on an international level. The Gipsoteca, recently reopened with a new layout, displays more than 400 plaster casts, including busts, bas-reliefs, monumental sculptures, and original models mostly by Lorenzo Bartolini. A fascinating environment that ideally recreates this sculptor’s studio, enriched by a collection of 19th-century masters who studied or taught at the Academy of Fine Arts. In the Hall of the Colossus, on the other hand, where Giambologna’s imposing earthenware sketch of the Rape of the Sabine Women stands out, visitors will be able to linger in front of some of the most excellent examples of 15th- and early 16th-century Florentine painting, and from here access the small hall, recently opened with the recent rearrangement, dedicated specifically to the 15th century, in which masterpieces such as the so-called Cassone Adimari by Scheggia and Paolo Uccello’s Thebaid, finally legible in all their marvellous detail, find their perfect setting. Lastly, enthusiasts will find unique specimens from the private collections of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany, the Medici and Lorraine, in the musical instruments section, such as the 1700 cypress and ebony harpsichord by Bartolomeo Cristofori, the expressive harpsichord by the Englishman Thomas Culliford from 1785, one of the few English harpsichords in Italy, and the famous upright piano built by Domenico Del Mela in 1739.
