12.2.12
Everyone knows and visits the Uffizi and Accademia in Florence – and there is so much to see they are always worth revisiting – but when you get the chance to spend more time in the city it is well worth venturing off the beaten track. This is especially true if you have any interest in the Anglo-American expats who settled in Florence after the unification of Italy – and some of the things of value that they brought or restored to the city – or in the Italian Bardini’s case – renovated and sold on to the appreciative Americans.
Stefano Bardini (1854-1922), originally came to Florence to paint at the Florence Academy – but like many artists faced with the genius of Renaissance Florence he gave up his own painting – except for restoration work – and in 1870 started to collect works that had been dismissed as passée in the frenzy of destruction and renewal that possessed Florence when it briefly became the capital of Italy.
Ultimately he became one of the most authoritative Italian antiquarians in Italy – collecting for his own pleasure and displaying them in what became the Palazzo Bardini, situated between Via San Niccolò and Via dei Renai. The Palazzo itself was an example of destruct and renew when he built it in 1880, sympathetically developing it from a collection of other buildings, including a 13th Century church, and unifying them with a new façade.
For his internal restoration Bardini used a variety of old treasures he found in and around Florence and like the other antiquarians collecting in Florence at the time Sir John Temple Leader , Arthur Acton, Herbert Horne and Frederick Stibbert, he decorated his own home with these wonderful artefacts.
When Bardini died he left his collection to the City of Florence and for some time the museum has been closed for restoration. Somewhat amusingly one of the things that has been restored is the colour of the walls – Bardini had chosen a bright blue, which the Florentine’s considered rather poor taste and repainted in beige – however when the work was completed they realised that the stone and terracotta didn’t stand out as well as it had against the blue – so they have put the original colour back…….and with my poor English taste I think it looks rather lovely!
The Blue Wall - as Baldini intended it !
One of the most beautiful things in the collection is this painted terracotta depiction of the Virgin – post Annunciation – dressed as a fashionable early 15th Century Sienese teenager – obviously taking the news very seriously.
Annunication - virgin dressed as a Florentine maiden
Below – from the same Sienese school at around the same period there is another painted terracotta Madonna – this time dressed in Mary’s traditional Royal Blue.
More traditional Mary image - in painted terracotta
And whilst we are admiring beautiful women – this bust of another contemplative lady with golden hair is one of the most striking I have ever seen.
Lovely lady with golden hair
Bardini is also known in Florence for his garden adjacent to the Boboli gardens – with it’s famous flight of baroque steps this Bardini legacy has also been restored and reopened last year and was one of the places we visited during our garden tour in May 2011.
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