The Palatine Gallery in Florence Medici's art treasures
The Palatine Gallery in Florence houses the part of the collection once belonging to the Medici which did not find a home at the Uffizi Gallery. The House of Lorraine decided that this immense artistic patrimony deserved a home worthy of it and thus reserved these luxurious quarters to its display.
The paintings and sculptures are not in chronological or thematic order but as the rulers of the House of Lorraine placed them, probably following the former layout of the Medici's, in a purely decorative manner. Most of the works in the collection are by the most famous artists of the 16th and 17th centuries. The visitor can find in these rooms the greatest number of works by Raphael and Andrea del Sarto, but also paintings by Botticelli, Titian, Bronzino, Caravaggio, Pontormo, Rosso Fiorentino, Murillo, Rubens, Van Dyck and many others. There are more than a thousand exhibits on display in the 35 rooms.
On the ceilings of the first five rooms is a cycle of frescoes with the theme of the education of the prince by the gods. The work was begun by Pietro da Cortona between 1641 and 1647, and was completed by his pupil, Ciro Ferri. It begins with the prince being taken from venus (love) by Minerva (knowledge) and then presented to the god Apollo, the teacher of sciences , Mars, the tutor of the art of warfare, and Jupiter the master of command. In the last room the prince arrives in Olympus where Saturn awaits. The protagonists of the frescoes give their names to the five rooms which house the most splendid masterpieces in the gallery. In the Venus room is the statue of the godness by Antonio Canova, commissioned by Napoleon as a replacement for the Medici Venus which the emperor took with him to Paris.
