Open Day at the Innocenti’s ‘Bottega dei Ragazzi’

The final touches on the newborn Museum degli Innocenti (Piazza Santissima Annunziata) was presented this week to the press in Florence, including the newly-amplified Bottega dei Ragazzi, open to children and schools in the local community. Now families have an opportunity to visit the newly restored and larger space as well as to participate in activities on Sunday, February 4 from 11 am to 4 pm (free admission).

Creative workshops designed for kids ages 3 to 11 will be offered and the play area with games and toys will be accessible.  The Open Day comprises visits to the Innocenti’s Cortile degli Uomini and Cortile delle Donne, completed in 1438 and 1445 respectively by Brunelleschi’s student Francesco della Luna. The same architectural motifs are used to define these graceful spaces, destined for the children’s outdoor walks.

The harmony of the Brunelleschi facade is echoed in the interior spaces as well as in the monochrome graffito decorations of babies in swaddling clothing, mirroring the Della Robbia infants above the outside loggia.  The blue and white Della Robbia glazed ceramic pieces have been recently restored and remounted, all but two (one is pictured), which are in fragile shape and are now permanently displayed in the Museum degli Innocenti.

When the Istituto degli Innocenti was an orphanage from the 15th to the 19th centuries, the Cortile degli Uomini (Men’s Courtyard) was a meeting place for boys and their teachers, the artisans (carpenters, iron mongers and shoemakers), and farmers (as the Innocenti was on the outskirts of the city, orchards and cultivated land were behind it). The Cortile delle Donne (Women’s Courtyard) was the counterpart for girls.  As the courtyards are open to the sky within the Institute, the orphans also gathered separately in the two venues for a breath of fresh air and to play games.

The orphans at the institute were given the surname “Innocenti,” sometimes corrupted as “Nocentini.” A quick glance at a Florentine phone book shows just how many of descendants are alive today.  One of the rooms of the Bottega dei Ragazzi is adorned by a fresco by Poccetti (1612) on the theme of the Massacre of the Innocents from which the Innocenti derives its name.  (rosanna cirigliano)