An era of outstanding cultural and intellectual talent that was to spawn a heated debate between the “modern manner” and the Counter-Reformation, between the art patronage of the Medici and the Church.

The final act in a trilogy of exhibitions, curated by Carlo Falciani and Antonio Natali, that began with Bronzino in 2010 and was followed by Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino in 2014, the exhibition showcases over seventy works of painting and sculpture, seventeen of which have been specially restored for the occasion. It opens with two absolute masterpieces, Andrea del Sarto’s Luco Pietà and Michelangelo’s River God, both of them crucial focal points for every artist of the 16th century, and goes on to host unprecedented dialogue between works of the early part of the century, for instance a unique juxtaposition between Pontormo’s Santa Felicita Deposition, Rosso Fiorentino’s Deposition from the Cross from Volterra and Bronzino’s Deposition of Christ from Besançon.

As it focuses on the second half of the century, the exhibition continues with a dazzling chorality of styles in the shape of work by such talented artists as Giorgio Vasari, Jacopo Zucchi, Santi di Tito, Vincenzo Danti, Alessandro Allori and Giambologna, to name but a few of those involved in the commissions for the Studiolo of Francesco I de’ Medici in Palazzo Vecchio and the Tribune of the Uffizi, or in redecorating the churches of Florence in order to bring them into line with the dictates of the Council of Trent.