View of the Udienza Pubblica

interior

The picture shows a view of the Udienza Pubblica, one of the adjoining three rooms on the ground floor in the summer quarters of Ferdinando II de' Medici in the Palazzo Pitti. The Palazzo Pitti in Florence, purchased from the Pitti family by the wife of Duke CosimoI de' Medici in 1549 and renovated and expanded by Bartolommeo Ammanati, served as a residence of royal proportions for roughly 350 years. It was occupied by the dynasties of the Medici, the Habsburgs, and finally the Savoyards, and subjected to constant adaptations and alterations.

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About the Artist

Angelo Michele Colonna

1604 – 1687

Italian painter and draughtsman, active also in Spain. He studied and collaborated with Girolamo Curti (1575-1632) and later enjoyed a 25-year collaboration with Agostino Mitelli. A figure painter (figurista) and quadraturista, with Mitelli he emphasized the former role. In 1625, however, Colonna provided both figures (studies, Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie) and quadratura for the nave ceiling of S Alessandro, Parma; in 1635-36 he and Mitelli decorated the walls of the Sala Grande, Palazzo Spada, Rome. Only the scenographic decoration of three ground-floor rooms in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence (1639-41), and the more richly detailed frescoes in the Great Hall of the Palazzo d'Este at Sassuolo, Modena (1646-47), survive out of their complete quadratura interiors. Their finest work in Bologna was the intricate design of the chapel of the Rosary, S Domenico (1654-56). In this period they decorated a chamber in the Palazzo Balbi, Genoa, contributing to the diversity of ceiling decorations in Liguria.

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