{"id":6423,"date":"2013-02-11T09:00:48","date_gmt":"2013-02-11T08:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.arttrav.com\/?p=6423"},"modified":"2014-02-22T22:25:05","modified_gmt":"2014-02-22T21:25:05","slug":"doni-tondo-uffizi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arttrav.com\/florence\/doni-tondo-uffizi\/","title":{"rendered":"Red walls and new neighbours for Michelangelo’s Doni Tondo"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s a lot of talk online about the new room created to house Michelangelo’s Doni Tondo at the Uffizi<\/strong>. One room over from the small bland “Room formerly known as 35” that used to house this masterpiece is the new, red<\/strong>, brightly lit Room 35 that has been set up first and foremost to provide a larger viewing space for the painting, and second, to contextualize the piece with art by artists who were friends of Michelangelo or influenced by him.<\/p>\n

Let’s look at the room and the works it now holds. I’m going to start out with a description of the new layout, and then proceed to list the works in the room, with an analysis of these works written in partnership with fellow blogger Hasan Niyazi.<\/p>\n

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New room<\/h2>\n

The decision to move the Doni Tondo to a larger room is a sane one, as anyone who has ever competed with crowds to see it in the old space will confirm. The old Room 35, just next door to the new one, was a shallow room with the entrance and exit doorways to the right. Crowds had to push in to the left and there wasn’t much space to see the Tondo from a distance, nor could the room accommodate more than one tour group at a time. Other paintings in the room were all but ignored. And the visitor flow was terrible as you had to go out on the same side as you came in.<\/p>\n

The new space chosen to house the Doni Tondo is a large, independent room right next door, which in the 17th century was where the nucleus of the self-portrait collection was housed, and more recently held Barocci’s Madonna del Popolo<\/em> and other counter-reformation works. A large double door permits visitors to enter and exit, while the room, with marble flooring and natural lighting, provides a natural visitor flow around the large piece of Roman statuary in its center.<\/p>\n

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Another view of the room, photo: stamptoscana<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This statue of Ariadne, on permanent loan from the Archaeological Museum, and the red walls are the most striking and innovative elements in the room<\/strong>. I asked the museum’s architect, Antonio Godoli<\/strong>, about the choice of colour – was it intended to match the reds in some of these specific paintings? He joked: “Well, of course it’s very studied – you can’t change the paint on the wall of the Uffizi every few years, on a whim!” “These are the colours of museum walls,” he continued. He refers to the blue rooms<\/a> on the lower level, that he designed and opened last year, and the red of the Tribune<\/strong>, the same tone used here. Although the Uffizi Gallery has always had white walls, unlike the Pitti Palace, which in later centuries was decked out with damask and velvet fabrics in rich colours, the red and blue walls here are in line with the tastes of the Dukes, who might well have chosen the most expensive pigments to decorate their walls. Furthermore, the colours are in line with those used in other international museums, although Godoli says, with some regret, that the more neutral tones employed in some of the rooms at London’s National Gallery simply would not be appropriate here. He also encourages us to visit in the evening, as he says the lighting is dramatic and the red looks even better then.<\/p>\n

The preparation of this room and moving the works cost 130.000 euro and was entirely financed by American charity, Friends of the Uffizi (and its Italian sister organization Amici degli Uffizi). You can see a video of restorers moving the Doni Tondo at night<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The paintings<\/h2>\n

Take a look around with this short video I shot during the press preview of the room.
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