Sacri Splendori

"This exhibition, devoted to a reconstruction of the treasure in the 'Chapel of Relics' in Palazzo Pitti, as the subtitle beneath the succinct but evocative title 'Sacred Splendour' tells us, means that almost four centuries later we will be able to rediscover in all its magnificence the forgotten and now dispersed identity of a perfect domestic sanctuary inside the Medici residence inaugurated in the course of a solemn ceremony in 1616." (Cristina Acidini). 

With these words in the exhibition catalogue, Director General Acidini introduces this exhibition held in the state rooms of what were once the Medici family's summer apartments, now the Museo degli Argenti.
Situated on the piano nobile of the Medici residence next to the apartments set aside for Tuscany's grand duchesses, for over one hundred and thirty years the Chapel of Relics played the role of schutzkammer for one of the largest and richest collections of reliquaries and other items of devotion in Europe, comparable in terms of sheer magnificence to the collection of the kings of Spain at El Escorial.   

This astonishing heritage, comprising almost one thousand items of incalculable worth, was dispersed from 1785 onwards.  It owed its dispersal in part to its very magnificence:  the gold, silver, precious stones and other valuable materials making up many of the reliquaries were used to replenish the coffers of the Grand Duchy of Lorraine, whose ruling house had become Tuscany's new overlords after the death of Gian Gastone, the last Medici grand duke. 

The event that triggered the dispersal of the prestigious collection in 1785 was Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo's wish to acquire some semi-precious stone vases which had belonged to Lorenzo the Magnificent, the most illustrious member of the Medici family, from the Basilica of San Lorenzo in order to enrich the collections in the Royal Gallery of the Uffizi.  The vases had been bought back on the antique market by the two Medici popes, Leo X and Clement VII, then transformed into reliquaries by Clement VII and donated by him to the Basilica of San Lorenzo.  In exchange for the vases – now preserved in the Museo degli Argenti – the basilica was given almost one hundred reliquaries from the collection in the Chapel of Relics.  A few months later, Pietro Leopoldo ordered a complete reorganisation of the items still in the palace, which led to the Chapel of Relics being dismantled and twenty-nine  reliquaries being moved to the new Palatine Chapel on the ground floor of the palace, entered directly from Ammannati's courtyard.  Other reliquaries were given to the then archbishop of Florence, Antonio Martini, who proceeded to share them out amongst the parish churches of the diocese, but all trace of this operation had been lost.

This exhibition is the result of meticulous scholarship based on a thorough and painstaking search through documents in the archives which has allowed us to reconstruct this important devotional treasure, with over one hundred items coming together again for the first time in more than two hundred years.  In particular, a careful comparison of the detailed descriptions in the 17th and 18th century inventories of the Chapel of Relics with information contained in the reliquary files drawn up both by the Ministerial Catalogue Office (now under the aegis of the Directorate General for the Historical, Artistic, Ethnic and Anthropological Heritage and for the Museum Cluster of the City of Florence and the Directorate General for the Architectural, Landscape, Historical, Artistic, Ethnic and Anthropological Heritage of the Provinces of Florence, Pistoia and Prato) and by the Italian Bishops' Conference has allowed us to identify a considerable number of those reliquaries that were shared out among various churches and other places of worship in the diocese of Florence.
In most cases they are extremely interesting examples of the goldsmith's art, whose illustrious origin in the Medici collection had been completely forgotten; some of them had been displayed in an exhibition entitled Firenza Sacra in 1933, but without any reference to their Medici origin and, in most cases, without even being illustrated in the small exhibition catalogue produced for the occasion. 

Rediscovered, with the assistance of the Florentine Archdiocese, in sacristy cupboards in various parish churches in the Florence area, these items from the grand-ducal workshops were not in a fit state, in terms of conservation, to allow them to be displayed.  The restoration of all of the items, entrusted to the skilled hands of some of the leading experts in the field, has not only contributed to the preservation of this magnificent heritage but has also allowed important new information to be unearthed. 
This includes the discovery of the stamp of the Paris goldsmith who made the precious frame for a portrait of Catherine de' Medici's son, King Henri III of France.  Catherine gave the portrait to her granddaughter Christine of Lorraine as part of her dowry and Christine, a woman of devout piety, later transformed it into a reliquary for the Holy Cross; or the discovery that the casket of the Holy Sepulchre, formerly thought to be the work of sculptor Massimiliano Soldani Benzi – but now correctly attributed, on the basis of documentary evidence, to goldsmith Cosimo Merlini the Younger –  is not in gilded bronze as was originally believed but all in silver enriched with the application of jewels in 16th century taste personally provided by Anna Maria Luisa, the Electress Palatine. 

The exhibition's four sections are devoted to the leading players in this particular branch of Medici collecting, to those members of the House who contributed the most to building up the treasure of the Chapel of Relics, primarily Christine of Lorraine, the granddaughter of Queen Catherine de' Medici of France, who married Ferdinando I de' Medici in 1589, and Archduchess Maria Magdalena of Austria, the wife of Cosimo II de' Medici and the true founder of the Chapel of Relics.  Thanks to the help of powerful correspondents such as Papal Nuntio to Naples Paolo Emilio Filonardi, the Archbishop of Genoa Domenico Marini and Cardinal Scipione Caffarelli Borghese, Maria Magdalena put together a considerable collection of relics in the space of a few years, housing them in a mixed group of elaborate reliquaries made up of rare and valuable materials ranging from ebony and different kind of semi-precious stones to amber from the Baltic and ivory. 
The next sections focus on Vittoria della Rovere, the wife of Ferdinando II de' Medici, and on her son, Grand Duke Cosimo III de' Medici.  Cosimo, in particular, devoted his unflagging energy to the search for relics, showing a special interest in those belonging to saints from remote regions of the world:  for instance the thigh bone of St. Casimir, the patron saint of Poland and Lithuania, for which he gave the bishop of Vilinus a tooth and few strands of hair belonging to Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi as a token of his gratitude.  
To house the precious relics that he collected, Cosimo commissioned showy reliquaries in silver, gold, precious and semi-precious stones, the result of cooperation between the most highly skilled artisans in the Medici Gallery of Works and such talented sculptors as Massimiliano Soldani Benzi or the multi-faceted Giovan Battistia Foggini, the court architect, who produced the most sophisiticated designs for extraordinarily sumptuous reliquaries.  Massimiliano Soldani Benzi made the original reliquary for the thigh bone of St. Casimir, a reliquary of the highest quality comprising an abundance of lilies and silver ribbons held up by putti carved in the round.