Most guests to the traditional Dominican church and museum of Santa Maria Novella in Florence go to see its Renaissance gems, reminiscent of Masaccio’s Holy Trinity, frescoes by Ghirlandaio and Lippi, and Giotto’s Ognissanti Crucifix.
However now, additionally it is a spot the place you may see works by a few of the largest artists of the Twentieth century that had been languishing in storage for years. The Florentine Civic Museums’ depository, which opened on the positioning in January, brings round 300 Trendy and up to date works belonging to the town out into the open. Shifting ahead, greater than 4,000 extra works will likely be added to what’s on view.
It’s all a part of the reassessment of storage that’s been happening in museums internationally: Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam turned the primary purpose-built accessible museum storage facility when it opened in November 2021, and in London the V&A’s East Storehouse is about to open later this 12 months, showcasing greater than 250,000 objects.
Usually, giant museums are in a position to present round 5% of their collections—although for some it’s considerably much less—a truth lamented by curators and gallery-goers the world over. “In Italy, and in Florence specifically, there are such a lot of artworks that a lot of them stay in storage, due to a scarcity of exhibition house, depriving individuals of the prospect to view extraordinary works,” says Alessia Bettini, the deputy mayor of Florence.
On a wet Saturday afternoon in Florence, The Artwork Newspaper joined one of many first public excursions of Florence’s new storage facility, organised by the cultural affiliation Mus.e. The ability is positioned in an space that was the lodging house of Pope Eugene IV in the course of the council of Florence in 1439, and later, at first of the sixteenth century, the workshop of Leonardo da Vinci as he devised the cartoon for his Battle of Anghiari, the so-called “Misplaced Leonardo”, commissioned for the Palazzo Vecchio. Renovation of the 1,100 sq. m house, which was most lately been used as a Carabinieri coaching college, has price round €2 million. Finally, it is going to home round 4,500 artworks over its three flooring.
The reveals up to now are principally from the Alberto Della Ragione Assortment—which was donated by the service provider to the town in 1970. There are works by the Futurist Carlo Carra; in addition to Mario Mafai and Antonietta Raphael Mafai, who collectively based the Trendy art-focused Scuola Romana, and Carla Accardi, an abstractionist related with the Arte Informel and Arte Povera actions of the mid Twentieth century. The newly displayed set of works boosts the illustration of girl artists inside Santa Maria Novella’s primary assortment, though notably that assortment does boast what’s believed to be the one model of the Final Supper to have been painted by a feminine artist in the course of the Renaissance: Plautilla Nelli‘s rendition from across the 1560s.
Going ahead, says Bettini, extra Twentieth-century works from the town‘s holdings will likely be placed on present in addition to the sinopies—or preparatory sketches—for the fresco cycle of the church’s Inexperienced Cloister, and nineteenth century works from the now-closed Risorgimento and Historic-Topographical museums of Florence. Having so many long-unseen items on present once more is, she says, “an important end result not just for Florence, however for tradition and artwork generally”.
