The exhibition “Federigo Angeli, the Florentine Renaissance in the 20th century,” will be started Friday October 7th. It will be hosted in the Sale Fabiane of the Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence and organized thanks to the contributions and activities of the Banca Patrimoni Sella & C. and of Sella Sgr, companies belonging to the group Sella, in collaboration with MUS.E of Municipality of Florenece and the non-profit Cultural Association Il Palmerino. The exposition will open its doors to the public starting Saturday October 7th, and will be open until January 7th, 2024
Hours: daily 9 a.m. - 7 p.m., Wednesday closed.
The exhibition - The exhibition project was born and developed around two matching paintings by Federigo Angeli entitled “Corteo di dama” e “Signore a Cavallo,” belonging to the collection of Sella Sgr on which the Artistic Direction of Banca Patrimoni Sella & C. carried out an important work of conservation, analysis, and correct attribution of the works, thanks also to the collaboration of various art historians, public bodies and private institutions. The documentary evidence from the archives at the Cultural Association, Il Palmerino proved to be particularly useful.
The exhibition committee entrusted with catalog insights and curatorship sees collaboration of professionals and art historians from public and private institutions, in a synergy of experience and expertise capable of encouraging new perspectives of study: Cristina Acidini, Francesca Baldry, Daniela Magnetti, Roberta Masucci, Marco Moretti, Federica Parretti, Filippo Timo, and Valentina Zucchi.
The exhibition is an opportunity to learn more about the artist and the context in which his workshop operated. In Florence, in the period between the 19th and 20th centuries, a real cult for Renaissance art developed thanks to the strong presence in the city of the Anglo-American community. La Bottega of Federigo (1891), Alberto (1897) and Achille (1899) Angeli took on the dimension of a great artistic forge capable of satisfying the ambitious extravagances of patrons and clients: from the restoration of paintings to copies from antiquity, from weddings coffers to the tempera paintings, to the fresco decoration of entire villas in the United States, the French Riviera and Monte Carlo, helping to disseminate the taste for fourteenth and fifteenth-century painting abroad.
The works - The two paintings on canvas can be directly traced back to the Cappella dei Magi fresco cycle painted by Benozzo Gozzoli (1420-1497) between about 1459 and 1464, both in terms of the overall construction of the scene and of precise literal references: the steed in step and the rampant steed, the ornamented noblemen, the rocky backdrop on which the turreted cities stand out, the treatment of vegetation. Compared with Gozzoli’s precedent, however, Angeli’s workshop stands out for its innovations and contamination of sources. If in the richly decorated walls of the Medici-Riccardi Palace chapel female figures are either totally absent or relegated to the margins of the scene, in the two canvases signed Angeli, women appear as protagonists of the procession. Inspired by Ghirlandaio (1448-1494) from Cappella Tornabuoni in Santa Maria Novella, the woman on horseback echoes the profile of Giovanna Tornabuoni in the Birth of Maria, while the woman with a basket on her head holding the rabbit is a reference from the Birth of St. John the Baptist. Alongside the two large canvases, the exhibition places other evidence of the wide and varied artistic production of the Bottega Angeli, with displays of sketches, paintings and richly decorated furnishings that can tell the story of the family of artists’ inexhaustible search around the sources of inspiration from the Renaissance.
Federigo Angeli (1891-1952), a native of Castelfiorentino and the oldest of four children, began his apprenticeship at a very young age with his father, painter and decorator, Angiolo Angeli. In Florence, at the Accademia delle Belle Arti, he frequented the Libera Scuola di Nudo and was a pupil of the American artist Julius Rolshoven.. Federigo’s artistic abilities and talent as a drawer were soon recognized and it was not long before he received awards and certificates of merit: he won first prize for two consecutive years in the Scuola Pio Istituto De’ Bardi for ornamental and figure drawing, Together with his brothers Alberto and Achille, Federigo transformed his father’s workshop into a successful enterprise that contributed to the spread of Florentine taste throughout the world, exporting its style and reproductions of the major artistic works of the Renaissance.
In addition to the works in the Neo-Renaissance style, he cultivates a more personal artistic production which will be represented in exhibition with some portraits and a still-life.
During the period of the exhibition, the visitors have the exceptional opportunity to visit the painter’s house at Villa Il Palmerino and its garden: Saturdays of October 14th, November 18th, and December 9th . Visits only by appointment: associazione@palmerino.it.
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