DIVINA SIMULACRA

In the radical reorganization of the Uffizi promoted by Cosimo III, the Tribune was also involved. For the first time it housed some of the most famous sculptures, preserved until then at the Villa Medici in Rome. After complex negotiations, some of the masterpieces belonging to Ferdinando dei Medici's collection, the Venus, the Knife-Grinder and the Wrestlers, arrived in Florence in the summer of 1677. To complete the arrangement of the new Tribune and thus attract the interest of the eighteenth-century Grand Tour visitors, two more sculptures dedicated to the Venus were also added: the Heavenly Venus and the Venus of the Belvedere, later located in the corridors.

On the occasion of the exhibition, that sublime female triad has been reassembled to fascinate today's visitors, and they are now accompanied, in addition to the Wrestlers and the Knife-Grinder, by other admirable works of ancient statuary, including the statue of the Hanging Marsyas, that of the Seated Nymph and that of the Dancing Faun, as well as heads, portraits, sarcophagi, and herms.

The exhibition catalogue, divided into 4 sections, devotes ample space to each of these ancient masterpieces, with an accompanying set of images that enhance the magnificence of the marble and all its nuances.