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The focus of the spring/summer season at the Bargello is the exhibition devoted to Bartolomeo Ammannati,
sculptor and architect in 16th-century Florence who made a decisive contribution
to the construction of the old city centre as we know it today.
He was responsible for undertakings such as building Ponte Santa Trinita,
creating the courtyard named after him in the Pitti Palace: Il Cortile dell'Ammannati,
and erecting the columns that Duke Cosimo de' Medici wanted to position in the most important places in the city
to build a symbolic route that would strengthen his political domination of Tuscany.
It's a real challenge to organise an exhibition of the work of a sculptor or architect in a museum.
So this year, 2011, to celebrate the 500th anniversary of his birth
the Bargello has decided to valorise its collection of works by Bartolomeo Ammannati.
This valorisation involves works such as: the tomb of Mario Nari
which was not assembled in a particularly brilliant way
but has now been symbolically completed,
or the splendid relief of Leda and the Swan, the composition of which is directly inspired
by the great Michelangelo who was for Bartolomeo Ammannati a symbolic benchmark.
But above all the museum has focused on the spectacular, dramatic effect of the reassembling of the Fountain of Juno,
an extraordinary undertaking to which Bartolomeo Ammannati devoted a great deal of energy.
It was designed to be constructed within the Sala dei Cinquecento
in Palazzo Vecchio itself, as a monumental fountain
with numerous figures and a complex structure.
However, the project from the 1570s was never completed,
and paradoxically the fountain set off on a series of peregrinations:
first to Pratolino, then to Boboli, and in the end to the Bargello, dismantled into two pieces.
The reconstruction in the courtyard of the Bargello illustrates the extraordinary impact of this invention,
which manages to convert the most intangible thing in existence – the rainbow - into the hard material of marble.
Because seated right there on the rainbow is Juno, symbol of dominion over the elements,
symbol of the circular water cycle, which ascends to the the sky and comes back to earth in the form of rain,
but also symbol of the fertility and motherhood of Eleonora di Toledo,
Cosimo de' Medici's beloved consort.