Venere e Amore. Michelangelo e la nuova bellezza ideale. Venus and Love. Michelangelo and the New Ideal of Beauty

This exhibition, laid out at the feet of the David, is the first to examine Michelangelo's new ideal of female beauty. At its center is the Venus and Cupid (Florence, Galleria dell'Accademia), painted by Pontormo following the full-scale drawing by Michelangelo. This work also serves as the point of departure for the themes of the female nude and of love in Michelangelo's works, and the debate about these topics among Florentine artists and literary figures.
The exhibition opens with a few drawings by Michelangelo on the theme of the "Goddess of Love": four sketches of an ancient Venus, originally part of the same sheet, will be reunited and compared with an ancient bronze statuette, and with a terracotta model from the Casa Buonarroti, presented as a work by Michelangelo himself. The show then illustrates the collaboration in 1532-33 between three major artists --Michelangelo, Pontormo and Bronzino-- and their patron, Bartolomeo Bettini, on the decoration of a room in his Florentine palazzo. To adorn the wall Michelangelo supplied a life-size drawing of the Venus and Cupid, executed in paint by Pontormo.

Also on view are two preparatory drawings, Michelangelo's Venus and Cupid (London, British Museum), and Bronzino's Dante (Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung) as well as Vasari's painting of Six Tuscan Poets (Minneapolis, Institute of Arts), all works exhibited for the first time in Florence.