Until May 14, 2023, the Pitti Palace houses the largest exhibition ever dedicated to the “Grande dame of the Sixteenth Century ” Eleonora di Toledo.
The magnificent halls of the Treasury of the Grand Dukes on the ground floor of the Pitti Palace show over 100 works, with major international loans, paintings, drawings, tapestries, costumes, jewels and gems will recount the life, personality and extensive cultural impact of Eleonora di Toledo.
Who was Eleonora di Toledo
But why is she so important to the Florentine history? The wife of Cosimo de’ Medici was a duchess and head of state in Florence, which means that she was a politically powerful woman, something that would already be relevant today, but even more on the 16th century.
Eleonora founded the Boboli Gardens, and she was also a fashion innovator and trendsetter of an iconic beauty; a passionate patron of the arts, a dazzling (if rare) example of female authority and charisma in the Renaissance.
Daughter of the Viceroy of Naples, don Pedro de Toledo, Eleonora was endowed with exceptional managerial skills and played a fundamental role in the construction of the Medici court, introducing Spanish court etiquette in Florence, revolutionizing the fashions of the elite, contributing to the transformation of the Tuscan landscape.
Together with Cosimo she managed to achieve important objectives: reinforce the stability of the state, ensure that her eldest son succeeded to the ducal title and that her second son obtained a cardinalate, improve Cosimo’s title from duke to grand duke, a goal achieved only after Eleonora’s premature death at the age of 40 from tuberculosis.
Info and reservations: https://www.uffizi.it/en/events/exhibition-eleonora-di-toledo