| The National Museum of the Bargello |
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Address: Via del Proconsolo, 4
The National Museum has its setting in one of the oldest
buildings in Florence and one of the most beautiful in Italy,
which was begun in 1255. Initially the headquarters of the
Capitano del Popolo and later of the Podestà, in the
sixteenth century it became the residence of the Bargello or head
of police spies from which it took its name. Throughout the
eighteenth century it functioned as a prison. It has been the
setting of many of the most important events of civic life such
as the meeting place of the Council of the Hundred in which Dante
took part. There have been
sieges, fires and executions, the most famous perhaps being that
of Baroncelli, involved in the Pazzi conspiracy against the
Medici in which Leonardo also participated. Despite a series of
alterations and additions which altered the original plan during
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the palace preserved its
pleasant severity, best seen in the beautiful courtyard, the
balcony and the large hall on the first floor.
The building's use as a National Museum began in the
mid-nineteenth century, and nowadays is the setting mainly for
works of sculpture and many examples of the decorative arts. What
the Uffizi offers in painting,
the Bargello offers in sculpture and its courtyard and interiors
contain some of the masterpieces of the Tuscan Renaissance. In
the large fourteenth century hall on the first floor are found
some of the finest works of Donatello (1386-1466) such as the
marble Youthful David, the St. George from its niche in Orsanmichele and the later, and
more ambiguous, David in bronze. All are works in which the
linear and decorative tendencies of late Gothic sculpture can be
seen giving way to more solid and human ideals, full of civic and
moral dignity.
Close to the work, of Donatello are exhibited sculptures by his
pupils Desiderio da Settignano (c. 1430-1464) and Antonio
Rossellino (1427c. 1479), and the two panels entered by Lorenzo
Ghiberti and Filippo
Brunelleschi for the Baptistery
Doors competition of 1401. Among the more dazzling exhibits
are the glazed terracottas of Luca della Robbia (c. 1400-1482),
whose sweet Madonnas glitter in white and blue as bright as the
day they left the studio.
For the
more important fifteenth century sculptors, the portrait bust
provided the means of penetrating beyond surface appearance to
the human character, and the second floor houses a collection of
such portraits of notable Florentines. In the recently
refurbished ground floor room are exhibited works of the
sixteenth century Tuscan masters, among them sculptures by
Michelangelo (1475-1564) , Bacchus, the circular relief the
Madonna and Child, the Brutus and the David-Apollo. Then follows
the work of Ammannati (1511-1592), Bandinelli (1488-1560), Andrea
and Jacopo Sansovino (1460-1529 and 1480-1570). Cellini is
represented by the little model for the Perseus and by the small
bronze sculptures brought from the Loggia of Orcagna, and
Giambologna (1529-1608) of whom Mercury can be admired and on the
loggia the delightful bronze animals made for the garden of the
Medici Villa of Castello. The museum houses many more treasures
in cluding Carrand, Reissmann and Franchetti donations augmenting
the decorative and minor art collections displayed in the many
rooms of the Palace, on the first and second floors. From
ivories, including precious examples also of the Roman and
Byzantine periods to medieval and Limoges enamels, French and
German gold works, Renaissance jewellery, Islamic examples of
damascened bronze, some from grand-ducal collections, Venetian
glass, the museum displays its treasures among which extremely
rare panel pieces and wooden sculptures.
Very important too is the collection of maiolica, arms and small
bronze sculptures. Moreover the second floor contains, in two
rooms, the Della Robbia section works of Andrea and Giovanni
Della Robbia, Verrocchio (a bronze of David and Lady with Posy)
and the splendid Medici collection of medals, recently reopened
to the public, with Baroque sculpture.
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