these things of heaven and earth

“This caprice and invention sprung from Duke Cosimo, to place together simultaneously these things of heaven and earth most correctly and without errors, and to be able to measure and see them both separately and all together, which will please one who delights in and studies this most beautiful profession…”

Giorgio Vasari

Fall is a time of ripening and fruition—a time to bring forth the richness of dreams planted in previous Springs.

When Giorgio Vasari and Cosimo I de’ Medici conceived the ambitious project of the Guardaroba in Palazzo Vecchio in 1563, bringing together the Duke’s growing collection of earthly wonders with new maps of the known world and cosmos, they could never have imagined what fruit their dream would bear.

Though the Guardaroba didn’t last long in this space as they intended, it grew along with the Medici ascendency into an office in charge of managing the family’s extraordinary mobile patrimony.

Over the three-hundred years of Medici preeminence in Florence, this office kept careful documentation of the collection. These records are held today in Florence’s State Archive. Collectively known as the Guardaroba Medicea, they remain an invaluable resource for scholars, still revealing new information about the art and culture of Florence in the time of the Medici.

As restoration of the original Guardaroba—the Hall of Geographical Maps in Palazzo Vecchio—gets underway this year, bringing attention to this site designed for the contemplation of beautiful objects, I think about the act of putting a dream out into the world, and seeing how the world transforms it.

It gives me joy to launch the website of La Guardaroba Firenze—to give my work a new space to be seen. I look forward to watching my dream transform through your eyes.

Read more about the Hall of Maps and the restoration project here.