When we think of the Uffizi, Renaissance art comes immediately to mind but the Museum reserves many other styles, including the Baroque, with a space entirely dedicated to the master Caravaggio and 17th-century painting.
There are eight rooms for the exhibition of Caravaggio at the Uffizi with suggestive names: Between reality and magic; Caravaggio and Artemisia; Caravaggio: The Medusa; Caravaggio: Il Bacco; Light at Night; Rembrandt and Rubens; Galileo and the Medici; Florentine Epic.
As Caravaggio’s art is very passionate, the color chosen for the panels in the rooms along the corridor (so as not to interfere definitively with Vasari’s original color) and for the walls of the interior rooms (from 96 to 99), could only be red. An exaggerated and non-flaming red, often found in fabrics and wallpapers represented in paintings from those years, studied on a textile model of the time and made with natural pigments already used in the 17th century.
The highlight is the Sala della Medusa, where the magnificent shield painted by Caravaggio is displayed in a new case against the background of a large red panel. On the walls, in addition to the Armida by Cecco Bravo, recently donated by the American section of the Amici degli Uffizi, another high point is the Roman statue of Minerva with the head of the mythological figure on her chest and the painting of the head crowned by snakes by Otto Marsaeus – that in past centuries was attributed to Leonardo da Vinci – which is considered one of the most famous paintings in the Uffizi by travelers.
For now, the space dedicated to Caravaggio is permanent, but as the Uffizi is constantly changing, it is worth checking before visiting if your trip to Florence is not planned for 2023.
Info and reservations: https://www.uffizi.it/biglietti