Amphitheatre - Boboli Gardens - Palazzo Pitti, Florence - Obelisk - Fritz Koeing 1924 - 2017 - A Retrospective - Large Icarus

At Boboli Gardens for a morning look around the gardens in Florence. It was a very hot morning in Florence. A bit dehydrating!

The Amphitheatre at Boboli Gardens.

Palazzo Pitti (Pitti Palace)

The Palazzo Pitti (Italian pronunciation: [paˈlattso ˈpitti]), in English sometimes called the Pitti Palace, is a vast, mainly Renaissance, palace in Florence, Italy. It is situated on the south side of the River Arno, a short distance from the Ponte Vecchio. The core of the present palazzo dates from 1458 and was originally the town residence of Luca Pitti, an ambitious Florentine banker.

The palace was bought by the Medici family in 1549 and became the chief residence of the ruling families of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. It grew as a great treasure house as later generations amassed paintings, plates, jewelry and luxurious possessions.

In the late 18th century, the palazzo was used as a power base by Napoleon and later served for a brief period as the principal royal palace of the newly united Italy. The palace and its contents were donated to the Italian people by King Victor Emmanuel III in 1919.

The palazzo is now the largest museum complex in Florence. The principal palazzo block, often in a building of this design known as the corps de logis, is 32,000 square metres. It is divided into several principal galleries or museums detailed below.

The construction of this severe and forbidding building was commissioned in 1458 by the Florentine banker Luca Pitti (1398-1472), a principal supporter and friend of Cosimo de' Medici. The early history of the Palazzo Pitti is a mixture of fact and myth. Pitti is alleged to have instructed that the windows be larger than the entrance of the Palazzo Medici. The 16th-century art historian Giorgio Vasari proposed that Brunelleschi was the palazzo's architect, and that his pupil Luca Fancelli was merely his assistant in the task, but today it is Fancelli who is generally credited. Besides obvious differences from the elder architect's style, Brunelleschi died 12 years before construction of the palazzo began. The design and fenestration suggest that the unknown architect was more experienced in utilitarian domestic architecture than in the humanist rules defined by Alberti in his book De Re Aedificatoria.

Though impressive, the original palazzo would have been no rival to the Florentine Medici residences in terms of either size or content. Whoever the architect of the Palazzo Pitti was, he was moving against the contemporary flow of fashion. The rusticated stonework gives the palazzo a severe and powerful atmosphere, reinforced by the three-times-repeated series of seven arch-headed apertures, reminiscent of a Roman aqueduct. The Roman-style architecture appealed to the Florentine love of the new style all'antica. This original design has withstood the test of time: the repetitive formula of the façade was continued during the subsequent additions to the palazzo, and its influence can be seen in numerous 16th-century imitations and 19th-century revivals. Work stopped after Pitti suffered financial losses following the death of Cosimo de' Medici in 1464. Luca Pitti died in 1472 with the building unfinished.

The building was sold in 1549 by Buonaccorso Pitti, a descendant of Luca Pitti, to Eleonora di Toledo. Raised at the luxurious court of Naples, Eleonora was the wife of Cosimo I de' Medici of Tuscany, later the Grand Duke. On moving into the palace, Cosimo had Vasari enlarge the structure to fit his tastes; the palace was more than doubled by the addition of a new block along the rear. Vasari also built the Vasari Corridor, an above-ground walkway from Cosimo's old palace and the seat of government, the Palazzo Vecchio, through the Uffizi, above the Ponte Vecchio to the Palazzo Pitti. This enabled the Grand Duke and his family to move easily and safely from their official residence to the Palazzo Pitti. Initially the Palazzo Pitti was used mostly for lodging official guests and for occasional functions of the court, while the Medicis' principal residence remained the Palazzo Vecchio. It was not until the reign of Eleonora's son Francesco I and his wife Johanna of Austria that the palazzo was occupied on a permanent basis and became home to the Medicis' art collection.

Land on the Boboli hill at the rear of the palazzo was acquired in order to create a large formal park and gardens, today known as the Boboli Gardens. The landscape architect employed for this was the Medici court artist Niccolò Tribolo, who died the following year; he was quickly succeeded by Bartolommeo Ammanati. The original design of the gardens centred on an amphitheatre, behind the corps de logis of the palazzo. The first play recorded as performed there was Andria by Terence in 1476. It was followed by many classically inspired plays of Florentine playwrights such as Giovan Battista Cini. Performed for the amusement of the cultivated Medici court, they featured elaborate sets designed by the court architect Baldassarre Lanci.

Boboli Gardens

The Boboli Gardens (Italian: Giardino di Boboli) is a park in Florence, Italy, that is home to a collection of sculptures dating from the 16th through the 18th centuries, with some Roman antiquities.

The Gardens, directly behind the Pitti Palace, the main seat of the Medici grand dukes of Tuscany at Florence, are some of the first and most familiar formal 16th-century Italian gardens. The mid-16th-century garden style, as it was developed here, incorporated longer axial developments, wide gravel avenues, a considerable "built" element of stone, the lavish employment of statuary and fountains, and a proliferation of detail, coordinated in semi-private and public spaces that were informed by classical accents: grottos, nympheums, garden temples and the like. The openness of the garden, with an expansive view of the city, was unconventional for its time. The gardens were very lavish, considering no access was allowed to anyone outside the immediate Medici family, and no entertainment or parties ever took place in the gardens.

The Boboli Gardens were laid out for Eleonora di Toledo, the wife of Cosimo I de' Medici. The name is a curruption of "Bogoli", a family from whom land had been bought to construct the garden. The first stage was scarcely begun by Niccolò Tribolo before he died in 1550, then was continued by Bartolomeo Ammanati, with contributions in planning from Giorgio Vasari, who laid out the grottos, and in sculpture by Bernardo Buontalenti. The elaborate architecture of the grotto in the courtyard that separates the palace from its garden is by Buontalenti.

The garden lacks a natural water source. To water the plants in the garden, a conduit was built from the nearby Arno River to feed water into an elaborate irrigation system.

The primary axis, centered on the rear façade of the palace, rises on Boboli Hill from a deep amphitheater that is reminiscent in its shape of one half of a classical hippodrome or racecourse. At the center of the amphitheater and rather dwarfed by its position is the Ancient Egyptian Boboli obelisk brought from the Villa Medici at Rome. This primary axis terminates in a fountain of Neptune (known to the irreverent Florentines as the "Fountain of the Fork" for Neptune's trident), with the sculpture of Neptune by Stoldo Lorenzi visible against the skyline as a visitor climbs the slope.

Giulio Parigi laid out the long secondary axis, the Viottolone or Cyprus Road at a right angle to the primary axis. This road led up through a series of terraces and water features, the main one being the Isolotto complex, with the bosquets on either side, and then allowed for exit from the gardens almost at Porta Romana, which was one of the main gates of the walled city. In 1617, Parigi constructed the Grotto of Vulcan (Grotticina di Vulcano) along this axis.

The gardens have passed through several stages of enlargement and restructuring work. They were enlarged in the 17th century to their present extent of 45,000 meters² (111 acres). The Boboli Gardens have come to form an outdoor museum of garden sculpture that includes Roman antiquities as well as 16th and 17th century works.

In the first phase of building, the amphitheatre was excavated in the hillside behind the palace. Initially formed by clipped edges and greens, it was later formalized by rebuilding in stone decorated with statues based on Roman myths such as the Fountain of the Ocean sculpted by Giambologna, then transferred to another location within the same garden. The small Grotto of Madama, and the Large Grotto, were begun by Vasari and completed by Ammannati and Buontalenti between 1583 and 1593.

Even while undergoing restoration work in 2015, the Large Grotto's statues are still on display and represent defining examples of Mannerist sculpture and architecture. Decorated internally and externally with stalactites and originally equipped with waterworks and luxuriant vegetation, the fountain is divided into three main sections. The first one was frescoed to create the illusion of a natural grotto, that is a natural refuge to allow shepherds to protect themselves from wild animals; it originally housed The Prisoners of Michelangelo (now replaced by copies), statues that were first intended for the tomb of the Pope Julius II. Other rooms in the Grotto contain Giambologna's famous Bathing Venus and an 18th-century group of Paris and Helen by Vincenzo de' Rossi.

Boboli Obelisk

The Boboli obelisk, previously called the Obelisco Mediceo, is an ancient Egyptian granite obelisk, which was moved in the 18th century from Rome to Florence, where it was erected in the Boboli Gardens.

The granite from which the obelisk is carved comes from Aswan and the inscriptions are dedicated to Atum, the deity of the city of Heliopolis. It is suspected to have been first erected in that city during the reign of Ramesses II. In the first century AD, it was moved to Rome by Domitian and placed in the Temple of Isis in the Campus Martius, along with three other obelisks still in Rome: the Obelisk at the Monument to those fallen at Dogali, the Obelisk of Piazza of the Pantheon, and the obelisk in front of Santa Minerva.

In the sixteenth century, Cardinal Ferdinand I de' Medici bought the 6-metre high obelisk in Rome and placed it in the gardens of the Villa Medici. When the Grand Duke Peter Leopold of Lorraine became Grand-Duke of Tuscany, he transferred to Florence many of the artworks in the Villa Medici. In 1788 he moved the obelisk, which weighed 9000 kilograms, travelling to first to Livorno, then by land to Florence. The voyage took four months. He also moved the Ancient Roman basin made of granite that had been associated with the obelisk in the Villa Medici.

It was erected near the center of the Amphitheatre of the Boboli Gardens in 1790, along the main axis leading away from the palace. In 1840, the granite basin, originally thought to derive from the Terme Alessandrine found in the Campo Martius of Rome, was also included in front of the obelisk. The arrangement was designed by Pasquale Poccianti. The obelisk is surmounted by a gilded orb and the base has four turtles. Both these accoutrements were present in Rome.

Underlying the traditional solar winged scarab to the top of the obelisk you can read the name and the first name of Ramesses II, from which the obelisk was erected. Entries, which are its titles, read: "Grand Master, powerful in all countries, the King, the Son of Tum and intelligent son of Atum." The King is also called "loved" by Tum and Ra, and this shows that the obelisk is directly from Heliopolis, the city of the "Sun" (Ra).

After the Fritz Koenig sculptures I saw the day before at the Uffizi Gallery, saw more sculptures, but bigger ones at Boboli Gardens.

Fritz Koeing 1924 - 2017 - A Retrospective

Large Icarus
Grande Icaro
Großer Ikarus
1985/1986

Some rights reserved

Taken in: Italia / Toscana / Firenze / Giardino di Boboli (show map)

Taken on: June 27, 2018

Tags:

Florence

Firenze

Italia

Tuscany

Toscana

birthplace of the Renaissance

the Athens of the Middle Ages

UNESCO

World Heritage Site

UNESCO World Heritage Site

historic centre of Florence

Piazza Pitti

Pitti Square

Piazza de' Pitti

Palazzo Pitti

Pitti Palace

Renaissance palace

Luca Pitti

Medici family

Grand Duchy of Tuscany

Cosimo de' Medici

Giorgio Vasari

Brunelleschi

Luca Fancelli

Buonaccorso Pitti

Eleonora di Toledo

Cosimo I de' Medici

Vasari Corridor

Francesco I

Boboli hill

Boboli Gardens

Giardino di Boboli

Niccolò Tribolo

Bartolommeo Ammanati

first and most familiar formal 16th-century Italian gardens

Bogoli

Bernardo Buontalenti

Giambologna

Fritz Koeing 1924 - 2017 - A Retrospective

Fritz Koeing

bronze

sculpture

Obelisk

Boboli obelisk

Obelisco Mediceo

ancient Egyptian granite obelisk

Cardinal Ferdinand I de' Medici

Villa Medici

Grand Duke Peter Leopold of Lorraine

Amphitheatre

Large Icarus

Grande Icaro

Großer Ikarus

Ammannati Courtyard « less

Sets appears in: • Fritz Koeing sculptures in Florence • Palazzo Pitti, Florence more » • Boboli Gardens, Florence • Florence « less

Groups appears in: • UNESCO World Heritage Sites • Stately Homes, Palaces and Castles more » • amphitheatres • Old Buildings and Structures • Obelisks around the world • PLANET EARTH ARCHITECTURE & ENGINEERING • Property protected by UNESCO around the world • World Architecture • Hanging Gardens of Babylon • PARKS GARDENS AND WOODS « less

Camera: Panasonic DMC-FZ72, f/3.8, 1/1300 sec, 8.2mm, ISO 100 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Panasonic DMC-FZ72
Aperture:	f/3.8
Exposure Time:	0.001 sec (1/1300)
Focal Length:	8.2mm
ISO:	100
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Program AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Ver.1.0
Show full info

Stats: 7,557 views