‘Magnificent 1492′, historic exhibition on Lorenzo de’ Medici at the Uffizi

In addition to a vast selection of paintings and sculptures with true masterpieces, there will therefore be vases, gems, cameos, coins, codices, geographical maps, testifying to the varied and multifaceted range of interests, passions and curiosities that constituted one of the most typical traits of the Medici lineage. The project is crowned by the recomposition of one of the most important cycles in the history of Western art that the galleries will reveal in the coming months.

“Magnificent 1492” will be held in autumn 2026; there are many important loans of works arriving from a wide range of Italian and international museums. Over a hundred, in total, the works that will make up the exhibition itinerary.

For the director of the Uffizi, Simone Verde, “a true watershed, the life of Lorenzo the Magnificent ends where the world of modern history that we still inhabit today opens. That is, in the year of the discovery of the Americas”.

Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici, known as the Magnificent (1449-1492), is universally recognized as the most famous ruler of the dynasty that governed Florence and Tuscany between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. A shrewd and capable politician but above all a fervent promoter of culture and the arts, so much so that he became the embodiment of the very concept of patronage, he surrounded himself with some of the most brilliant intellectuals of his time, such as Angelo Poliziano, Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, and artistic geniuses of the caliber of Botticelli and Michelangelo, thus managing to transform Florence into the undisputed capital of the Renaissance. (by Paolo Martini)