The construction of the Mappamondo, the large terrestrial globe by Egnazio Danti, is still underway
A journey into the world of the sixteenth century: that’s what you can do in Hall of the Cloakroom of the museum of Palazzo Vecchiocommonly known as Hall of geographical maps, that reopens after a year of restoration.
It will thus be possible again to admire the tables painted with the lands of Europe, Africa, Asia and the new world as they were known in the second half of the sixteenth century. The restoration of the globe is still in progress, a monumental globe placed in the center of the room, which is being ‘edited’ live under the eyes of visitors.
The restoration was carried out by the Technical Services-Fine Arts and Factory of Palazzo Vecchio direction. From the value of 500 thousand euros, was made possible thanks to donation from Friends of Florence under the program Florence I Care which aims to create partnerships with private individuals for the restoration of cultural and public interest assets. Globe and geographical maps, with the exception of some maintenance interventions dating back to the 1950s, had never been restored with modern techniques.
“We reopen to the public a precious room of the museum, a casket of beauty that has always aroused the curiosity of visitors for the accuracy of the maps depicting the whole world known at the time of Cosimo I and for the wonderful globe in the center, one of the older and older ones that have come almost completely intact to us – declares the mayor Dario Nardella – Thanks to the generosity of Friends of Florence, who have always been at our side for the enhancement of our artistic heritage, we can now return to this room restored to its former glory. Whenever we have international guests we take them to see the card that portrays their country and they are always speechless. In 2015 Merkel spent a long time in front of the map of Germany, I also remember the same with the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was amazed to see one of the very first geographical representations of the country of him “.
“The restoration of the Hall of the Wardrobe in Palazzo Vecchio with the geographical maps and the terrestrial globe, which represent the cosmos, is one of the most fascinating projects we have undertaken in the last 24 years – notes the president of Friends of Florence Simonetta Brandolini D’Adda – The combination of art and science, combined with the restitution of a vision of the whole world at the time of Cosimo I is engaging. Through our only donor, The Giorgi Family Foundation, we are honored to be able to restore the entire room which will be completed in the coming months thanks to the expertise of the restorers, the synergy with the Fabbrica di Palazzo Vecchio and an interesting study collaboration with the Museum. Galileo “.
The Hall of geographic maps, located on the third floor almost at the end of the exhibition itinerary, it is one of the most visited rooms in the Palazzo Vecchio museum and consequently is subjected to considerable wear.
The cards, 53 oil paintings on wood with wooden supports, inserted in the doors of the monumental cabinets, they offer a detailed representation of lands and seas known at the time of Cosimo I, embellished with a myriad of gilded inscriptions, refined scrolls, Medici feats and fantastic creatures, they have been detached and restored in the adjoining room which already hosted the restoration of the putto that decorates the Terrace of Juno on the third floor of the museum, recovered a year ago again thanks to Friends of Florence. The globe, on the other hand, too large to change rooms (it has a circumference of over two meters), has only been moved inside its headquarters as the works have progressed. The spectacular globe in the center of the Sala delle Carte Geografiche, with its approx 220 cm in diameter, it is the oldest large globe that has survived to this day.
As regards the Geographic maps, the wooden supports are generally in good condition. The pictorial layers, on the other hand, reacted differently to the stresses suffered over the centuries and to the restorations carried out in the past, with aggressive cleaning, which irreversibly consumed and stained part of the surfaces. In the tables of Egnazio Danti these vicissitudes have also produced phenomena of wrinkling and shifting of the color, mainly located in the seas. The reading of the paintings was disturbed by previous restoration interventions: several layers of weathered and yellowed protective varnishes, numerous overflowing retouching, in varnish and oil, and a widespread brown patination. The restoration was mainly aimed at improving the legibility of the figures, through selective interventions of removal or thinning of the restoration materials and pictorial integration of the old gaps and wear reported in view of the cleaning.
The intervention, supported by a multispectral photographic documentation campaign and non-destructive and micro-destructive analyzes, made it possible to recover chromatic values consistent with the original ones, such as the intense lapis lazuli blue of Danti’s seas and the brilliant tonal passages of Bonsignori.
The large terrestrial globe by Egnazio Danti it has undergone several restorations over the centuries, the first in 1595 by the astronomer and mathematician Antonio Santucci delle Pomarance and the last in 1958 by Florentine restorers in the private and public sector. The diagnostic investigations and the study of the existing documentation made it possible to clarify various aspects of the executive technique and to distinguish the materials used in the previous restorations. The first cleaning tests with gelled solvents brought to light several overlaps of restoration materials that covered numerous abrasions and lacks of the paint layer, together with three large gaps in correspondence with breakthrough damage. The long and difficult cleaning took place in two phases: with the first the thick layer of almost total repainting with varnish colors and natural resins, altered and pigmented from the origin, was removed; with the second we proceeded to the punctual removal of many black residues of a further old oil-based pictorial intervention, perhaps dating back to a nineteenth-century restoration.
Cleaning is currently being completed. The intervention will continue in the coming months with the plastering of the gaps and the subdued pictorial integration of the numerous lack of color. The restoration took place at the sight of the museum visitors in the Hall of the Wardrobe, where the globe was disassembled from its metal elements and placed on a temporary structure, specially designed and built to allow restorers to rotate it and easily intervene on the whole surface.
The external metal structure has also undergone restoration. This iron structure, consisting of a base mounted on four feet, a meridian hinged at the ends of the rotation axis, the horizon and an ecliptic semicircle, before the restoration was illegible, obscured by incoherent deposits and oxidation phenomena. Furthermore, due to a remote subsidence, the meridian rested on the base, preventing the rotation of the globe. The work in progress has made it possible to ascertain that the main irons that have reached our days, despite the repeated dismantling and restorations mentioned by the sources, are the original ones. The cleaning, aimed at removing aged protective agents and surface corrosion, brought to light details of gradations and engraved or punched inscriptions that were not visible before. The future phases of the restoration will be aimed at improving the assembly of the structure, up to the desirable restoration of the rotation mechanisms.
In addition to the restorations, the works in the room involved the consolidation of the supporting structure of the attic, the new flooring, the conservative maintenance of the monumental cabinets and the replacement of the plexiglass panels located on the doors with the installation of anti-reflective plates such as “Optium Museum. Acrylic “. A new lighting system was also prepared based on the home automation system that uses LEDs.
