A visit to the Uffizi

Transcript

1. The Annunciation - Room 3 The title of this painting is “The Annunciation”. The painters are Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi. It was painted in 1333. You can see Archangel Gabriel (with wings) who is delivering the message to the virgin Mary. There are words flowing from the angel's mouth to Mary. “Ave Maria, gratia plena, dominus tecum”.
2. The Adoration of the Magi - Room 5-6 The title of this painting is “The Adoration of the Magi” The painter, Gentile da Fabriano, painted it in 1423. You can see the path of the three Magi, which starts from the upper left corner (the voyage and the entrance into Bethlehem) and continues clockwise, to the meeting with the Virgin and Jesus which occupies the lowest part of the picture. All the figures wear splendid Renaissance costumes, richly decorated with real gold and precious stones. We can see the artist's typical attention for detail in the animals, such as a cheetah, a dromedary, some monkeys, a bird, two other birds fighting, two big cats on a horse's back, a roe deer, a lizard on the wall, as well as the magnificent horses and a hound.
3. The Birth of Venus - Room 10-14 The title of this painting is “Birth of Venus”. The painter is Sandro Botticelli. It was painted in 1484. You can see a beautiful girl emerging from the sea, she represents the Goddess Venus. She is in a shell and Zephyr, who is symbol of spiritual passion, blows the wind towards her, ashore there is a young woman who is giving her a flowered cloak. According to some commentators, the naked goddess is a symbol of spiritual love.
4. Primavera (Allegory of Spring) - Room 10-14 The title of this painting is “Primavera” The painter is Sandro Botticelli. It was painted in 1482. From the left you can see Mercury (the Roman god of travel, commerce and thieves) with wings on his feet, the Three Graces dancing, Venus in the middle, Flora with a flowered dress who is throwing flowers, Chloris and Zephyrus. Up in the the sky there is Cupid with his eyes covered who is directing an arrow towards the dancing girls. In this painting there are 500 identified plant species and about 190 different flowers.
5. Annunciation - Room 15 The title of this painting is “Annunciation” The painter is Leonardo da Vinci. It was painted in 1472. You can see the angel holding a lily, a symbol of Mary's virginity and of the city of Florence. The other painters used to paint the Annunciation in a closed space (a house, a building, …), Leonardo instead represents this event in the open air. In the background we can also see a port, some buildings and a mountain. The artist realizes that an object that is far away, not only changes its dimensions but also its colours. The wings of the angel were originally shorter because Leonardo wanted to represent him while closing them. The golden piece of cloth is covering only Mary's belly and not her legs too because it points out Jesus' presence.
6. Medusa – Sala Caravaggio The title of this painting is “Medusa” The painter is Caravaggio. It was painted in 1597. In Greek myth, Perseus used the snake-haired head of the Medusa as a shield with which to turn his enemies to stone. By the sixteenth century Medusa was said to symbolize the triumph of reason over the senses. This was a ceremonial shield. It is said that the face is that of Caravaggio himself. To paint himself he stayed in front of a mirror.
7. Bacchus – Sala Caravaggio The title of this painting is “Bacchus” The painter is Caravaggio. It was painted in 1595. You can see a young Bacchus with grapes and vine leaves in his hair. He holds a big glass of red wine After the painting was cleaned, a tiny portrait of the artist was discovered in the reflection on the glass. A reflection of Bacchus' face can also be seen on the surface of the wine in the glass he is holding.
8. Madonna del Cardellino - Room 26 The title of this painting is “Madonna del Cardellino” The painter is Raffaello. It was painted in 1507. You can see that the three bodies together form an almost regular triangle. The Virgin is holding a book, that identifies her as Sedes Sapientiae ("Seat of Wisdom"). The goldfinch is a symbol of Christ's future violent death. St. John offers the goldfinch to Christ in warning of his future.
9. Madonna with child and two angels - Room 8 The title of this painting is “Madonna with child and two angels” The painter is Filippo Lippi. It was painted in 1465. You can see a very elegant Madonna, wearing clothes and jewels of the Renaissance fashion. The pearls we see are symbol of purity for the young brides (from the Bible).
10. Portraits of Federico da Montefeltro and his wife Battista Sforza – Room 8 The title of this painting is “Portraits of Federico da Montefeltro and his wife Battista Sforza”. The painter is Piero della Francesca It was painted in 1465. You can see the Duke and his wife portrayed with a very clear skin as symbol of richness, in fact farmer had darker skin as they had to be working in the fields. There are a lot of details in the background of the portrait. Perhaps these are the hills near Urbino, the place where the Duke and his wife lived. There are also sailboats in the river and we can see their shadows as if the painter painted them from the above.
11. Doni Tondo - Room 25 The title of this painting is “The Holy Family” or “the Doni tondo”. The painter is Michelangelo Buonarroti, the same of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. It was painted in 1506. Here you can see the importance given to body's muscles. The nudes in the background are symbols of the pagan world before Christ; on the right the little St. John indicates the passage, through the baptism, from the pagan age to the christian age. Mary is more like a man than a woman because Michelangelo used male models.