The Cinquecento in Florence: ‘Modern Manner’ and Counter-Reformation

Palazzo Strozzi hosts an extraordinary exhibition dedicated to Florentine art of the latter 1500s, the last act of a trilogy dedicated to 16th-century art in Florence, which began with Bronzino in 2010 and Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino in 2014. The Cinquecento in Florence, confronts the development of Florentine art in the second half of the century through paintings and sculptures by artists including Andrea del Sarto, Bronzino, Pontormo, Giorgio Vasari, Giambologna, Bartolomeo Ammannati and Santi di Tito. The exhibition, and this accompanying catalogue, also provides the opportunity to restore important works of art and to construct a wide network of collaboration between museums, cultural institutions and Florentine and Tuscan sites. The result is a celebration of an exceptional cultural epoch of intellectual inspiration marked by the Council of Trent during the Counter-Reformation, and by Francesco I de'Medici, one of the most brilliant representatives of courtly patronage in Europe.