Galleria dell'Accademia
The Galleria dell'Accademia is a combination
artist workshop and museum, in some ways representative of the manner
in which the Renaissance artists exhibited their work in the space where
it was created. The museum's exterior (photo to the left) is unassuming in
comparison to galleries such as the Uffizi, but this belies its size. The museum has expanded
from the original workshop into the
building which once belonged to the San Matteo hospital, and also to an
adjoining part of the ex-convent San Niccolò in Cafaggio. The Galleria dell'Accademia contains some of the gems of the Renaissance.
The entrance to the museum takes one past a row of sculptures
Michelangelo created for the tomb of Pope Julius II (many were never
completed), and this promenade of sculptures leads to the monumental
apse which contains Michelangelo's David, shown in the photo to
the right. Although it is one of the more famous images of the
Renaissance, pictures do not do justice to either the detail nor the
scale of his creation. In a word, David is epic in proportion, perhaps
three to four times larger than life-size. And the detail is such
that, save for the size, a
viewer could mistake the sculpture for a living figure covered in
alabaster. David has resided in the Galleria dell'Accademie
since being moved from the front of the Palazzo Vecchio in 1873. On the
sides of the David's apse, there are paintings by Florentine artists of
the first and second part of the 16th Century. They document the
pictorial period during the years of Michelangelo's labors, extending through
the Counter-Reformation.
To the left of the entrance to the museum is a gallery which
hosts the paintings of Florentine artists of the first part of the 16th
Century. Among these paintings you can find works by Fra' Bartolomeo, Andrea del
Sarto and Perugino. Dominating the room (photo to the left) is the
original plaster model from Giambologna's last work, The Rape of
the Sabine Women, which currently resides among the outdoor
sculptures at the
Loggia dei Lanzi. The
Galleria dell'Accademie also has three Florentine rooms which contain a
series of paintings of the 15th Century which document, in a short but
articulated way, the pictorial production of the main shops
("botteghe") which were active in Florence during the time of Masaccio,
Piero della Francesca and Botticelli.