Until Jan. 26, an interesting exhibition at Palazzo Vecchio, which has always been the political center of Florence, aims to shed light on this delicate subject, from the artist's personal political vision to the relationships he had with the powerful, his contemporaries.
The centerpiece of the exhibition is undoubtedly the Brutus, from the Bargello Museum, a Michelangelo work with profound political significance. The famous bust in fact represents the “ideal tyrannicide,” probably inspired by the figure of Lorenzaccio, assassin of Duke Alessandro de' Medici, his cousin; the work was commissioned by a well-known anti-Medicean exponent at the end of the Second Florentine Republic (1527-1530), in which Michelangelo himself had taken part as respnsible for fortifications during the imperial siege.
In the Sala dei Gigli, Michelangelo's portrait, by Bugiardini, stands out in the center of a whole series of portraits of illustrious men (including Friar Savonarola, Cosimo I de' Medici, Pope Leo X); all figures with whom the Master had the opportunity to deal during his long years of life, always knowing how to claim his freedom as a conscience and as an artist.
Numerous autograph drawings bear witness to as many famous undertakings in which the great artist engaged: from the Battle of Cascina (a fresco, never completed, destined for the Salone de' Cinquecento in Palazzo Vecchio) to plans for fortifications at the time of the Florentine Republic, from the elevations for the Florentine complex of San Lorenzo to those for St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. A sort of “Michelangelo gipsoteca” has been set up to conclude the exhibition, with various casts from more or less famous works by the Master.
For full details see the exhibition fact sheet.
