Address: Piazza San Pancrazio
In the heart of Florence, between Strozzi Palace and
Santa Maria Novella, unexpected
and surprisingly one comes across the Marini Museum.
The long, alternate matter concerning S. Pancrazio was concluded
in the autumn of 1988 with the opening of a Museum, which
successfully joins old and new. The city and the world passing
through it recover a historical building through a fine and well
thought out restoration and acquire the first contemporary art
Museum in Florence.
The Museum contains 176 works of Marino Marini, one of the most
important sculptors of the twentieth century (1901-1980). There
are sculptures, paintings, drawings and incisions donated on
different occasions by the artist and his wife Marina. Their
arrangement is of subject nature rather than chronological,
fixing as a theme a mood rather than an iconographical subject:
it revolves round an imposing equestrian group, from The Hague
(1957-1958), placed in the centre of the old liturgical space and
immersed in the light of a destroyed apse.
Marino considered that natural light was an essential element for
the interpretation of his work: the criterium is fully granted
and put to fruit in the Museum, where every sense of separation
from the outside world is almost dispelled. There are numerous
points of observation and so a solution has been found for the
artist's aversion towards "the work on the pedestal", a
concept which is not at all far from the Marinian poetic
expression.
