Leonardo’s room and adjoining rooms, Uffizi Gallery

Room 15 documents the artistic beginnings of Leonardo da Vinci, starting from the first documented work, the Baptism of Christ of 1475, the work of his master Verrocchio in which the young Leonardo painted the head of the angel on the left, the landscape and perhaps the modeled of the body of Christ. Another youthful work is the Annunciation, painted by the twenty year old master, where the qualities of the Leonardesque nuance are already visible and his attention to atmospheric vibrations (think of the angel just landed), but with some perspective errors, like the book on which the Virgin puts an arm, which rests on the ground on a base far more advanced than the legs of the Madonna. The Adoration of the Magi instead is an unfinished work in which the innovative sense of the genius of Vinci is evident, with a very original composition focused on the Madonna and the Child in a glowing scenario of many moving figures, among which the traditional San Giuseppe or the capannuccia.

In the hall are also represented artists active in Florence in those years: Perugino (three large blades), Luca Signorelli and Piero di Cosimo.

Room 16 (of the geographical maps) was originally a loggia, which was closed by desire of Ferdinando I de ‘Medici and was frescoed with maps of the Medici domains. The cartography is the science that is in charge of gathering and analyzing measurements and data of regions of the Earth, to graphically represent them to different linear dimensions reduced scale.

Room 17 is called Stanzino delle Matematiche, always created for Ferdinando I to accommodate its scientific instruments. The ceiling was in fact decorated with an allegory of Mathematics and episodes that celebrate ancient scientific culture. Today it displays the collection of modern bronzes and some ancient sculptures.

Related Post

Uffizi Gallery

The Gallery entirely occupies the first and second floors of the large building constructed between 1560 and 1580 and designed by Giorgio Vasari. It is famous worldwide for its outstanding collections of ancient sculptures and paintings (from the Middle Ages to the Modern period). The collections of paintings from the 14th-century and Renaissance period include some absolute masterpieces: Giotto, Simone Martini, Piero della Francesca, Beato Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, Mantegna, Correggio, Leonardo, Raffaello, Michelangelo and Caravaggio, in addition to many precious works by European painters (mainly German, Dutch and Flemish).

Moreover, the Gallery boasts an invaluable collection of ancient statues and busts from the Medici family, which adorns the corridors and consists of ancient Roman copies of lost Greek sculptures.

Share