The Michelangelo Room, Florence

The Museo Nazionale del Bargello is Florence’s renowned museum of sculpture forming part of the Bargello Museums, together with the Medici Chapels and the Orsanmichele Church, amongst others.

The captivating Bargello building (briefly described in our Donatello Room post) houses a collection of the most important Renaissance sculptural masterpieces by legendary artists including Michelangelo Buonarroti, Donatello, Ghiberti, Cellini and Verrocchio, providing a glimpse into their genius and the Renaissance era itself. The Bargello’s exhibits allow visitors to marvel close-at-hand at the exquisite craftsmanship and profound artistic expression of the Renaissance’s greatest sculptors – works that exceptionally showcase sculptural art’s enduring impact on the world of art.

On passing through the visitor entrance into the inner courtyard (noticing the walls of which are covered with 13th- and 14th-century coats of arms of the podestà), an immediate right turn, past the flight of stone steps to the upper loggia, …

… takes visitors into the ground-floor Michelangelo and 16th-century Sculpture Room which, at the time of opening as a museum in 1865, housed a collection of weapons, flags and trophies that now have their own room on the museum’s second floor. Nowadays, the room’s displays include four works by Michelangelo together with sculptures by Giambologna, Cellini and Sansovino, amongst others.

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The very first sculpture to greet the visitor is Michelangelo’s rather inebriated Bacchus, a goblet of wine in his right hand…

This was one of Michelangelo’s earliest works, dating from around 1496 when he was working in Rome at just 21 years old. Showcasing realism and a sense of emotional intensity, it depicts the Roman god of wine, Bacchus, as an androgynous, youthful, intoxicated figure. Behind Bacchus is a faun, eating into some of the grapes held in Bacchus’ left hand. Bacchus’ left hand also holds the skin of a tiger (or lion?) which passes the faun’s right arm, leading down to the animal’s head at the base …

Commissioned by Cardinal Raffaelle Riario, to be placed in the Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome, Michelangelo’s representation proved too profane for the high-ranking cardinal whereupon it was sold to Roman banker Jacopo Galli at which point it found itself amongst classical Roman remains in Galli’s garden. A few years later in the 1530s, a drawing was made by Dutch portrait and religious painter, Maarten van Heemskerck, of the Bacchus in situ in Galli’s garden …

… where it can be seen that “parts” of the statue have been removed – including the right hand which had been holding the goblet. Although these may have been lost accidentally, they may have been deliberately removed to give the appearance of a true classical, 1,500-year-old, Roman statue, appearing as it did amongst genuine Roman artefacts.

By 1572 the statue had been bought for 270 ducats for the Medici, whereupon it was moved to the Uffizzi in Florence.

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Michelangelo’s is not the only Bacchus in the room …

This Bacchus and faun by Jacopo Tatti (aka Sansovino, 1486-1570), probably Sansovino’s most celebrated work, was completed in 1512, some 16 years after Michelangelo’s Bacchus, this time with the goblet in his left hand. Again commissioned as a garden statue, this time for the Villa of Giovanni Bartolini, in 1544 it was donated to the Medici collection and installed in the Medici apartments in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. Later moved to the Uffizzi in the 17th-century, it was damaged by fire in 1762 from which traces of damage are still visible.

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As if two statues of Bacchus weren’t enough, there is a third, a bronze, dating from the 1560s by Flemish sculptor Jean de Boulogne (1529-1608), better known as Giambologna, sculptor to the Medici family and one of the most influential sculptors during his lifetime. During the late 16th- and early 17th-centuries he was to become the last significant Italian Renaissance sculptor. Visitors to Bologna will no doubt have passed by/seen his 1567 statue of Neptune, atop the Fountain of Neptune.

Chronologically third in our list of three, this time there is no faun and now the goblet is back in his right hand …

Here in a Late-Renaissance, mannerist style, Giambologna adopted a more heroic, physical, muscular and older, Bacchus than his predecessors, Michelangelo Buonarotti and Sansovino. This work from c. 1560 was commissioned by Latanzio Cortesi, who himself was a friend of the Buonarroti family, but by 1638 had been purchased by the Medici family at which time it was housed in the Medici palace, Palazzo Pitti, Florence. However by 1825 this original work found itself in a niche on the Ponte Vecchio – where it remained until 2006! A copy now stands in its place on the corner of Borgo San Jacopo and the PonteVecchio.

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Alongside Giambologna’s Bacchus stands his most celebrated sculpture, one of his four versions of Mercury …

This work was finished about 1580 and was destined to become a fountain figure for the Villa Medici in Rome. The statue stands poised on one foot on a column of air (albeit bronze) emanating from the mouth of the head of Zephyr, god of the West Wind. When the statue was part of the fountain, the water passed over this arrangement, giving the impression that Mercury was floating, with the resulting shimmering reflection of light from the water and the statue enhancing the effect of speed.

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Michelangelo’s second statue here is the marble David/Apollo …

There is some confusion here as to who this represents. One of Michelangelo’s non finito (unfinished) works dating from about 1530, this could either represent David or Apollo. On the one hand, the unfinished statue has a right foot resting on … something. Had this been finished, it could have been the head of Goliath, but then … the character reaches over his shoulder into what could be an (unfinished) quiver, reaching for an arrow, possibly indicating the Greek God, Apollo, who, amongst other things, was the god of archery …

This work was commissioned by the despised Papal Governor of Florence, Baccio Valori, to stand in his own private palace – but later, having been accused of treason against the Medici, was beheaded on the order of Cosimo I de’Medici. The sculpture was then ‘acquired’ by Cosimo I, where it was to be found in the 1550s in Cosimo’s bedroom.

If this is David, it marks a significant difference to the powerful David that Michelangelo had sculpted some 25 years earlier in 1504 (now in the Accademia, Florence). Here we seem to have a more remorseful, pensive David – if that is who it is!

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Michelangelo’s third work here is a marble bust of Brutus, the most famous of the assassins of Julius Caesar. It is Caesar who, in Shakespeare’s play, Julius Caesar, as he is assassinated, utters the words to his ‘friend’ and betrayer, “Et tu, Brute?” – You too, Brutus? – …

This bust was of great political significance to Michelangelo. After the expulsion of the Medici and the defeat of the Republic of Florence (1527–1531), Brutus was seen as a hero amongst those who overthrew the Medici, particularly relatable with its parallels of how Brutus overcame the tyranny of Caesar’s rule.

The work was commissioned by a Medici opponent for Cardinal Niccolò Ridolfi, completed around 1540, and is another example of a non finito work by Michelangelo.

There is a strong, definite turn to the right, echoing busts of the classical era, which here almost shows a contempt, a scornful disdain, through strength – it was a not-too-coded message aimed at the ‘tyrrannical’ rule of the Medici …

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The fourth and final work by Michelangelo in this room is the Pitti Tondo …

Commissioned by Bartolomeo Pitti and completed during 1503-1505, this work was sculpted about the same time that Michelangelo was working on his more famous sculpture, the David. Here the Virgin Mary sits on a block, her head almost bursting out of the frame, with the Infant Jesus leaning against her, clasped by her left hand, with his arm leaning on an open book on her lap. Behind them is the infant John the Baptist, in low-relief, adding to the impression of depth within the portrayal.

Again, as with two of the other three Michelangelo works in this room, this sculpture is unfinished, apart from the face of the Virgin Mary and, to some extent, the face of the infant. Michelangelo’s rough working can be seen as oblique chisel marks on the left hand side of the tondo. The two faces are in high-relief, although a close inspection further reveals the unfinished nature of the work with finer chisel marks still remaining on both.

Unfortunately, the Tondo was left unfinished when Michelangelo left Florence for Rome, where he had been called by Pope Julius II to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. By 1823 the sculpture had appeared in the shop of an antique dealer, Fedele Acciai, where it was purchased by the Florentine Galleries for 200 scudi. Subsequently placed in the Uffizi Gallery (containing another, this time painted, Tondo by Michelangelo, the Doni Tondo), in 1873 it was finally placed in the newly established Bargello National Museum.

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Although there are many sculptural works in this room, too many to mention, it only seems right that the final sculptural mention here should be of a work by Benvenuto Cellini. Find out more about Cellini in our post, Cellini and the Bronze Perseus.

This is the bust of the patron to many up-and-coming and established Renaissance artists at the time, Cosimo I de’Medici. Here he is dressed in Roman armour and exuding an Imperial air – a parallel between contemporary Italy and Roman Italy that other Italian leaders in the past have not left unnoticed. His piercing gaze (made more fierce with his silvered eyes) exudes personal, and Medici, power …

Cosimo I de’Medici came to power in 1537 as a mere 17-year-old after the assassination of the former Duke of Florence, Alessandro de’ Medici, and soon imposed himself on a turbulent Florence as something of an autocratic ruler.

However, he was well-aware of the power that art played as propaganda in promoting Florence as the powerhouse of the Renaissance – and its role in the promotion of the Medici dynasty and the dynasty’s patronage of the arts. Without Medici patronage, the Italian Renaissance might not have been as rich and as varied.

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The Bargello is a five-minute walk from the Ponte Vecchio, via the Uffizi Gallery, covering about 5 or 600 metres. Its perpendicular distance from the banks of the River Arno is probably about 400 metres …

On the 5th November 1966, the same day as the most serious Aqua Alta in recorded history in Venice, the river overflowed its banks, in places to 5 metres depth resulting in mud flows which also contained fuel oil and petrol. There were 47 deaths in total, many were left homeless, businesses were ruined. The flood inundated the ground floor of the Uffizi Gallery and other museums and churches – with a devastating loss of the artistic and cultural heritage. Even the Bargello, 400 metres from the river, was not spared. The ground floor was inundated, including the Michelangelo Room.

Many sculptures in the Bargello’s Inner Courtyard were caught up in the mud, some knocked over and damaged. Once the river had subsided, the so-called “Mud Angels” set about the clean up with artists and historians repairing damaged works. The Michelangelo Room was restored and whitewashed to be seen today with its displays of some of the most prestigious examples of sculpture from the 16th-century.

With an increase in extreme weather events, an inundation of this magnitude is not going to be restricted to a ‘once in a lifetime’ event.

For more information, see our post, Santa Croce and the 1966 Flood.

Ciao Tutti!

(P.S. Apologies if I didn’t include your favourite exhibit from the Michelangelo Room!)