An Art Lover's Guide to Florence

14. The Museo Nazionale del Bargello

Chapter 14 The muSEO NazIONaLE del BarGELLO hISTOrY OF ThE BuILdING M any museums find a home in places that once served other purposes. The Louvre and the Hermitage are former royal residences, and the Uffizi once held the administrative offices of the Florentine ducal government. But the building that houses the Bargello has a more sinister history. Among the oldest public buildings in Florence, the twelfth-century structure first served as the home and headquarters of the capitano del popolo, a military leader usually hired from a foreign city to prevent him from favoring one side or the other in Florence’s numerous factional disputes. In 1574, however, under the autocratic rule of the Medici, the building assumed a new function: it became the headquarters of the city police as well as a prison and a place for torture and executions. The chief of police was called the Bargello, a name later extended to the building that held his office. Changes during the subsequent three centuries seriously disfigured the structure. Its handsome loggias were enclosed, rickety staircases constructed, and large imposing rooms broken up into tiny cells. even the chapel was divided into two floors, with the upper one housing still more cells, and its lower portion turned into a storage room. Lacking minimally adequate space and sanitary facilities for its ever-increasing number of prisoners, the shabby old building became notorious for its filth and squalor. Toward the middle of the 1800s, a rebirth of interest in the city’s former splendors led to a campaign to rehabilitate the Bargello. The building ceased 224 aN arT LOVEr’S GuIdE TO FLOrENCE to serve as the city’s police headquarters in 1859, and restoration work began in 1861. When Florence briefly served as the capital of the united Italian republic , beginning in 1865, a decision was made to complete the restoration and turn the Bargello into a museum. Today, it’s famous for a fine collection of minor arts—carved ivories, medals, cameos, jewelry, textiles, glassware, small bronzes, and ceramics, most of them from the late medieval period and the renaissance. But the Bargello also houses some superb sculptures, chief among them works by Donatello and Michelangelo. The original of Donatello ’s St. George is in the Bargello, and its copy has been placed in the niche on Orsanmichele. (For discussion of this work, see Chapter 6.) dONaTELLO’S BrONzE DAVID WITH THE HEAD OF GOLIATH A great deal of mystery and even notoriety surround Donatello’s bronze statue of David with the Head of Goliath. It is the first freestanding, life-size bronze nude since roman times, and much about it remains uncertain. Although no one disputes Donatello’s authorship, scholars continue to argue about the date of the work. suggestions range from the 1420s to the 1460s, with a consensus that it’s from the 1440s. Often said to be based in a general way on ancient roman or Hellenistic Greek statues of youthful heroes and athletes, an exact model for the figure has yet to be discovered. It’s not out of the question that the model was a flesh-and-blood boy, since the figure doesn’t conform to any classical ideal, and it’s too realistic to be considered fully “antique” in form. The most likely patron is Cosimo de’ Medici, but here, too, no definitive proof has come to light showing the statue was a Medici commission. All we know with certainty is that the statue’s recorded history begins in 1469, three years after Donatello’s death. In that year a chronicler of the fabulous reception held in honor of the marriage of Cosimo de’ Medici’s grandson Lorenzo (later to be known as Lorenzo the Magnificent) described food-laden tables in the middle of the courtyard of the Palazzo Medici as arranged “around the beautiful column on which stands the bronze David.” Anyone familiar with the biblical story of David and Goliath, told in detail in First samuel 17, will be puzzled by Donatello’s work, for the artist made no effort to re-create any particular moment described in the narrative. Furthermore , despite the lack of any indication that David performed his heroic deed unclothed, Donatello’s David is nude, which is unprecedented—all earlier The Museo Nazionale del Bargello 225 (above) Donatello, David with the Head of Goliath, front view, Museo Nazionale del Bargello. (right) Donatello, David...