Rome, 8 October (askanews) – The first major monographic exhibition dedicated to Jacopo da Pontormo, known as Pontormo (Pontorme, Empoli, 1494 – Florence, 1557) was inaugurated at the Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome and will be open to the public from 9 October to 7 February 2027. An original and visionary innovator, whose work inspired twentieth-century artists such as Bill Viola or Pasolini, Pontormo is one of the great protagonists of sixteenth-century Florence, a restless artist and founder of Mannerism in the Renaissance. The exhibition, promoted by Ales – Scuderie del Quirinale in partnership with the Uffizi Galleries – director Simone Verde also spoke at the press conference – produced together with the publishing house Electa (which also publishes the catalogue), is curated by Cristina Acidini with other leading experts on sixteenth-century Florence (such as Elena Capretti, Philippe Costamagna, Bruce Edelstein and Carlo Falciani) and is an opportunity to see the artist's main masterpieces have been brought together, as had not happened since the Pontormo and Early Florentine Mannerism Exhibition at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence in 1956.
The curator Acidini: “Pontormo's career is told here from his early days, in the collective undertakings under the aegis of Andrea del Sarto, then the autonomy of his mature years, with the large altarpieces and drawings that evoke the lunette of Poggio a Caiano for Leo X de' Medici. And then through these phases, such as his approach to the graphics of Albrecht Duerer and the achievement of his own totally autonomous, visionary manner, characterised by bright colours enlivened by strong contrasts”, explained the curator Cristina Acidini to askanews. From the Capponi chapel in Santa Felicita in Florence comes the altarpiece with the Pietà (or Transport of Christ, 1525-1528), of magnetic beauty, together with four tondi with the Evangelists by Pontormo and Bronzino, while from the parish church of San Michele Arcangelo in Carmignano near Prato comes Pontormo's best-known work, the Visitation (1528-1532), which it can be admired in the last room.
"And then the great works of his maturity: the portraits in particular, both of important figures in Florence at the time and of the Medici dynasty, which took office permanently in 1530 and appointed him as its first court painter," Acidini recalled. The exhibition is made possible thanks to exceptional loans from museums and collections around the world (in addition to the Uffizi Gallery, the Galleria dell'Accademia and the Bargello Museums in Florence, the Galleria Borghese and the Istituto Centrale per la Grafica in Rome, also the Louvre in Paris, the National Gallery and the British Museum in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles and others), along with paintings on loan from the dioceses and parishes of Florence and the surrounding area.
The director of the Scuderie del Quirinale, Matteo Lanfranconi, said: "The first monographic exhibition dedicated to Pontormo had never even been held in Pontormo's hometown, Florence. The Scuderie del Quirinale succeeded, thanks in part to its partnership with the Uffizi Gallery, an extraordinary lender for the exhibition and an institutional symbol guaranteeing credibility among all the international lenders who recognized this as an incredible opportunity to participate."
Askanews