Accademia Gallery Exhibition "Fabric and Richness in Florence in the Fourteenth Century"
The Accademia Gallery of Florence (the second most visited museum in Italy after the Uffizi Gallery) will host the exhibition “Fabric and richness in Florence in the fourteenth century. Wool, silk, paint”.
Realized by Cecilie Hollberg, the Accademia Gallery Exhibition wants to pay tribute to the textile art of Florence in the fourteenth century, when the wool art reached an excellent quality level and for this reason the Republic of Florence became the European centre for the textile items.
The exclusive woolen, and then silk, fabrics produced in Florence were sold not only in Europe but also in the East and in Asia. Everyone wanted them. The cloth trade represented the beginning of the economic ascent of Florence: many families accumulated numerous riches which allowed them to create magnificent works to celebrate the political and economic power of Florence.
The work for the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore and for Palazzo della Signoria started thanks to the money obtained by Florence with its cloth trade. The Wool and Silk Guilds involved in this trade became important art contractors and they financed not only the construction of buildings but also the production of artworks which are considered today masterpieces of inestimable artistic and economic value.
The works shown by the Florence exhibition offer visitors unique examples of tissues and clothes of that time but also paintings which represent the pattern and the beauty of some particular tissues.
A unique example is a woolen dress of the XIV century, tailored for a little girl, which was found during the archeological digs in Greenland. Another example is a “piviale” (property of the Museum of Bargello), a tissue which demonstrates the amazing sumptuousness of the silk tissues and of the woven pile fabrics made in Florence in the fifteenth century.
