L’Acqua, la Pietra, il Fuoco. Bartolomeo Ammannati scultore (1511-1592)
Bargello National Museum. Florence
May - September 2011
In the spring of 2011, the Bargello held the first monographic exhibition dedicated to Bartolomeo Ammannati, marking the 500th anniversary of the artist’s birth, whose sculptures the Bargello largely possessed. The title alluded to the central theme of the exhibition, which focused on the three significant fountains that Ammannati created under the commission of Duke Cosimo I: the one intended for the Hall of the Five Hundred in the Palazzo Vecchio, the fountain for Piazza della Signoria (known as the "Biancone"), and the fountain for the garden of the Medici Villa of Castello.
The exhibition featured a spectacular reconstruction, in the Bargello courtyard, of the first of these: the marble fountain that was meant to be installed in the Hall of the Five Hundred in Palazzo Vecchio (hence called "of the Grand Hall"), composed of six large statues of deities.
Over the centuries, it had adorned the grand ducal gardens of Pratolino and Boboli, before being disassembled and brought to the Bargello.
In fact, the initial, suggestive project of a fountain inside the Grand Hall was halted in 1560 in favor of the more public (and more propagandistic) Piazza Fountain – or "Biancone" – which was also entrusted to Ammannati. A few years later, the Duke also commissioned him to create the fountain for his Villa of Castello, featuring the gigantic bronze Hercules and Antaeus at the center of the garden, along with various animals inside the grotto.
The exhibition, in collaboration with the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Florence, was dedicated to these three fountains, which illustrated the Grand Duke's policy of using water both as an aesthetic and spectacular element, as well as its rationalization and innovative technical advancements—truly remarkable in enhancing this essential resource for the well-being of his subjects. Other sculptural works by Ammannati, such as the famous Leda and the Swan, the Nari Monument, the Medici Genius, Mars Gradivus, and Venus from the Prado, along with drawings, plans, and documents, completed the exhibition.
An important complement to this project was a short documentary that was projected as part of the exhibition. It illustrated the key phases in the creation of a replica—using resin and plaster molds—of the large marble sculpture of Juno, which was later mounted in the Bargello courtyard in its original position at the top of the Grand Hall Fountain.
