La Firenze di Foggini

The black and white photographs by Paolo Bacherini, taken between 2002 and 2003, elegantly and profoundly capture the character of the buildings designed or decorated by Foggini, including the churches of Santa Maria del Carmine, Santissima Annunziata, and San Jacopo Sopr’Arno, in dialogue with the palaces of Corsini, Pitti, Pucci, and Viviani della Robbia.

A second room is entirely dedicated to the interventions carried out by the sculptor at Palazzo Medici Riccardi itself, evoked through photographs that capture their harmony and solemnity: the columned courtyard, the monumental staircase, the Hall of Mirrors, and the Riccardiana Library. The images, originally produced for Riccardo Spinelli’s volume Giovan Battista Foggini. “Chief Architect to the Most Serene House” of the Medici (1652–1725) (Edifir, 2003), are now housed at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence (which collaborated in the realisation of the exhibition), and bear witness not only to Foggini’s mastery but also to the artistic and human sensitivity of the photographer Paolo Bacherini, who is here commemorated thirteen years after his passing.