Florence’s Newborn Museum of the ‘Innocents’

putto_Andrea Della Robbia copyExpect an exciting change of look as well as name from the newborn Museum of the Innocenti Institute, all of which will be revealed to the public with free admission on June 24. That day is a very important one for Florence, the feast day of its patron saint, John the Baptist, and a local holiday.  It is a fitting date for an opening at one of the city’s most beloved institutions.

Chartered in 1419 as the first lay organization in the world to provide a home for abandoned infants, the Foundling Hospital of the Innocenti has been caring for children for over six centuries.  A look at the Florence’s white pages will also reveal a long list of residents, whose last name is Innocenti or Nocentini, descendants of children who grew up in the Piazza Santissima Annunziata orphanage.  Founded by the silk guild, the Innocenti, an integral part of Florence’s social fabric, has played a major role in the city’s history and public life.

The extensive renovation of the newly-christened Museum of the Innocents (Museo degli Innocenti) has cost almost 13 million euro, over half of which is funded by the Tuscan Region and the rest by the Institute itself.

Many of the museum’s art works have been restored during the three-year closure. These include the famous glazed reliefs of infants in swaddling clothes created by Andrea della Robbia from the facade. For the first time in history, visitors are able to admire these unique Renaissance sculptures, the iconic symbols of the Institute, up close, installed in a special “nursery” in the Museum.  Later this year the terracotta toddlers will be reinstalled on the facade, which will be formally inaugurated in December along with the Museum’s 20th century section.

The renovation plan, designed by Florentine architects from Ipostudio, has created 15,579 square feet of exhibition space, and over 17,700 square feet of space for temporary events and educational activities.

Inside the New Museum

It was not been a simple task to remodel a space that is an architectural Renaissance masterpiece, but the new Museum has masterfully meshed modern and historical elements together. The renovation encompasses three stories of the historic building, including a stunning rooftop terrace. Originally a verone, a covered outdoors space used for drying linens at the orphanage, the large terrace now houses a café. While taking a break from touring, visitors to the terrace can enjoy a unique and intimate birds-eye view of the Duomo, the Synagogue and many other buildings and gardens in the Florence cityscape.

The vaulted rooms of the basement, which once served as the main storage area, now feature the Museum’s large historical section. Visitors can discover how childcare has evolved over the centuries, experience the lives of over 100 orphans of the past at the Foundling Hospital through multimedia reconstruction, and learn about fascinating aspects of life inside the Orphanage from the early Renaissance period up until the last century.

A beautiful semi-circular installation contains 140 wooden drawers displaying “markers,” left by the orphans’ mothers so that they could reclaim their child in the future. The markers include pieces of jewelry, coins cut in half, notes, and many other touching signs of maternal love.

Upstairs over the loggia is the main Gallery of the Museum, once the sleeping quarters for the male orphans. The newly renovated space houses the most precious of the numerous works of art given as gifts to the Innocenti over the centuries.

The 80+ masterpieces on display include Ghirlandaio’s exquisite Adoration of the Magi, painted in 1488 for the high altar of the Church of the Innocents.  This is one of the artist’s finest; full of animated details that the children at the Hospital surely enjoyed as much as their elders.

A solemn young Madonna, with a very lively and realistic looking Christ Child on her lap, is at the center of the composition. The ox and the donkey close by seem very interested in the scene. They are framed by a classical structure topped by a semi-circle of angels bearing an illuminated musical scroll with the “Gloria.” The three richly dressed Magi offer their gifts, and are flanked by John the Baptist, patron of Florence, and John the Evangelist, the patron saint of the silk guild. Two small children kneel by the saints and participate in the adoration of Baby Jesus. They symbolize both the “innocents” of the Foundling Hospital and those of the biblical Massacre of the Innocents, depicted in the background on the left side.

The main figures are set against an intricately painted northern landscape including misty mountains, a river with ships putting into port, the idealized city of Jerusalem on the left and on the right, shepherds on a hill looking up at a tiny angel.  Ghirlandaio also painted himself into the picture, standing just to the left of the youngest Magi and looking out at the viewer.

The museum also provides a showcase for Botticelli, Piero di Cosimo, Luca della Robbia, Neri di Bicci, Filippino Lippi and Andrea del Sarto.  Earlier works, such as the altarpieces by Giovanni del Biondo and Giovanni Toscani, entered the Foundling Hospital’s collection when it took over the operation of the Orbitello Hospice, which cared for pregnant single mothers.

A Little History

The job of designing the Foundling Hospital was given to an untried young architect, Filippo Brunelleschi, a member of the silk guild, which included goldsmiths and metal workers among its ranks. The Spedale degli Innocenti was the first Renaissance building in Italy, and the first important commission entrusted to Brunelleschi, who would go on to construct the great Dome of Florence’s Cathedral.

One of the main and immediately obvious aspects of Brunelleschi’s revolutionary hospital design is the long portico facing the Annunziata Square, thus literally offering a first form of shelter to those in need. The original pietra serena basin in which the babies to be given up by their mothers to the Foundling Hospital was located under the portico, on the right side near the women’s quarters.

Many of the abandoned “Innocenti” during the Renaissance were the children of slave girls or servants in the households of wealthy Florentine families, whose donations helped provide for the upkeep of the children and for the dowries of female orphans. The Innocenti patrons and its various directors also commissioned and donated art to both the orphanage and its church, St. Mary of the Innocents. It is this collection that forms the basis for the newborn Innocenti Museum, which starting June 24 will be open daily from 10 am – 7 pm, ticket €7, access for families €10 for two adults and two children under 10, while admission to the Café Venone is free.  For details see www.istitutodeglinnocenti.it. (elizabeth wicks)