In a historic first, Florence dedicates an exhibition at Palazzo Vecchio to the painter Giovanni Stradano (Jan van der Straet, Bruges 1523-Florence 1605) to celebrate five hundred years since his birth. An exceptional event for a Flemish artist who contributed significantly to the city where he chose to reside until the end of his eighty-two years.

The unprecedented exhibition features approximately eighty works including paintings, drawings, prints, books, tapestries, and instruments, and offers a unique introduction to the artist, Giorgio Vasari’s most important and most versatile collaborator in decorating the ducal palace. Giovanni Stradano dedicated years to the decoration of ducal rooms – including the apartments dedicated to the “earthly gods” (namely the Medici), Eleonora di Toledo’s rooms, Francesco I’s Studiolo, and the Sala Grande, known as the Salone dei Cinquecento – and left his distinctive stylistic signature on this rich and complex project.

Portraitist, landscapist, and – above all – an innovative draftsman, Stradano was a member of the Accademia del Disegno, founded by Cosimo I de’ Medici in 1563. Giorgio Vasari – who described Stradano as having “good design, wonderful whimsy, a great imagination, and a good way with color”– entrusted him with many projects, including the Battle of Scannagallo, the emblem of Florence’s victory over Siena, and the concept design for The Hunts, the famous tapestry series destined for the villa of Poggio a Caiano.

The exhibition is divided into six sections, masterfully integrating works on loan with the paintings and frescoes Stradano executed in the palace. With important loans from the Musée du Louvre in Paris, the Albertina Museum in Vienna, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, as well as the Museo di San Matteo in Pisa, the Istituto Nazionale della Grafica in Rome, the Musei Civici in Milan, the Uffizi Galleries, the National Museum of Bargello, the National Library of Florence, the Medicea Laurenziana Library, and other important public and private collections, the exhibition aims to provide an in-depth look at his oeuvre and highlight his originally creative modernity.

While ample emphasis is given to works originating within the Florentine court before 1574, these are complemented by paintings from other prestigious commissions and drawings for copperplate prints of scientific and geographical interest. Stradano passionately dedicated himself to these pursuits in the second part of his life, becoming a “pictor celeberrimus,” universally praised, even by Vasari, for the “strangest and most beautiful inventions in the world”: among these, the Nova Reperta series stands out.