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The Minneapolis Institute of Art will celebrate the artistic achievements of Renaissance Florence in an exhibition featuring more than 45 loans from the renowned Uffizi Galleries in Florence – including Botticelli’s evocative Minerva and the Centaur. “Botticelli and Renaissance Florence: Masterworks from the Uffizi” will include paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture, decorative arts, and a selection of ancient Roman marble statues.
The exhibition will be one of the most comprehensive shows on Botticelli ever staged in the United States and will contextualize his works within the broader artistic and cultural climate of Renaissance Florence. On view from October 15, 2022 through January 8, 2023 in Mia’s Target Galleries, “Botticelli and Renaissance Florence: Masterworks from the Uffizi” marks the first collaboration between Mia and the Uffizi Galleries.
Famous for his large-scale mythological and secular paintings, Sandro Botticelli (1444/5-1510) was one of the most celebrated and gifted artists of the Italian Renaissance. He is also well known for his inimitable treatment of sacred subjects, which include altarpieces, devotional pictures, and three major frescoes in the Sistine Chapel in Rome commissioned by Pope Sixtus IV.
In addition to his Minerva and the Centaur (c. 1481), painted for the Medici family at the height of his career, the Uffizi is loaning a dozen works by Botticelli to the exhibition, including nine paintings treating a range of subjects from the religious and mythological to portraiture, and three drawings which are very rarely lent and have never been exhibited in the U.S.
The exhibition will also include loaned works by Botticelli’s master, Fra Filippo Lippi, and other members of Botticelli’s circle, including Filippino Lippi, the Pollaiuolo brothers, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Perugino, and Lorenzo di Credi.
Important Roman sculptures spanning the second century BCE to the second century CE will also be on display, including five major works from the Uffizi’s collection. These antiquities will help illuminate the integral role ancient art played in the Italian Renaissance and the influence it exerted on Botticelli and his circle.
“The presentation of such rare objects of extraordinary quality alone is sure to inspire wonder and delight,” Katie Luber, Nivin and Duncan MacMillan Director and President of Mia, said. “Following the extended period in which the pandemic limited the nature of international curatorial collaboration, the opportunity to bring wonderful works of art from the Uffizi to Minneapolis is nothing short of incredible. What better moment to examine Botticelli and the Florentine Renaissance than next fall, as we seek the rebirth of culture, art, and connection.”
Loans from the Uffizi will be interspersed with objects from Mia’s collection throughout the exhibition, including Benedetto da Rovezzano’s Saint John the Baptist sculptural bust (c. 1505) displayed alongside Jacopo del Sellaio’s Triumph of Mardocheus (c. 1490-93), a panel painting from the Uffizi which depicts a similar terracotta bust.
All of the paintings have been submitted to new lab examinations and important new discoveries will be published in the forthcoming catalogue.
Museum Hours
Tuesday-Wednesday 10am–5pm
Thursday 10am-9pm
Friday-Sunday 10am-5pm
Monday Closed
For more information, call + 1 612 870 3000 or visit www.artsmia.org
General admission to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts is free; admittance to the Minneapolis Botticelli exhibition costs $20; Mia Members are $16; Youth 17 and Under Free.
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