The symbolic starting-point of the event is the Chapel of the Magi in Palazzo Medici Riccardi. It would appear, in fact, that the verdant landscape that Benozzo Gozzoli painted as the background to the royal procession portrays the Mugello, the homeland of the Medici, the family whose founding members we can still recognise among the figures in the cortege.

The Medici Villas, set up in the Museo della Manifattura Chini in Borgo San Lorenzo, illustrates the settlement of the Medici family in Mugello and documents their uninterrupted links with the territory. On display are some of the famous lunettes showing the Medici villas painted by the Flemish artist Justus van Utens, as well as portraits, such as those of the various members of the Medici dynasty by Bronzino, sculptures, drawings, ceramics, maps and documents dating to the Medici era.

The Convent of Bosco ai Frati in San Piero a Sieve hosts Donatello, Brunelleschi and the Man on the Cross, featuring three masterpieces: Donatello’s Crucifix from the Basilica of Santa Croce, that of Brunelleschi from Santa Maria Novella and the Wooden Christ from the circle of Donatello, kept at Bosco ai Frati. A unique opportunity to recall the challenge between the two Masters described by Vasari, according to whom Brunelleschi sculpted his Crucifix in friendly rivalry with Donatello’s Christ, disparagingly dismissed by Brunelleschi as “a peasant on the cross”.

In the premises of the Palazzo dei Vicari in Scarperia, famous for its expertise in the forging of cutting implements, a fine selection of sixteenth-century armour provides a reconstruction of the Medici arsenal, partly housed up to the end of the sixteenth century in three rooms of the Uffizi, and later only partially kept in the Bargello. The Medici in Arms documents the military aspect of this powerful dynasty, displaying precious armour and the portraits of the Medici in arms, including the marble bust by Sangallo and the painting by Giovan Battista Naldini of Giovanni delle Bande Nere and the portrait of Cosimo I by Bronzino.

The Mugello and the arts: Giotto, Fra Angelico and Andrea del Castagno, set up in the Beato Angelico Museum of Vicchio, celebrates three masters originating from the Mugello: Giotto and Fra Angelico, born in the territory of Vicchio and Andrea del Castagno, from the village that gave him his name.
Brought together for the exhibition are Giotto’s Saint Stephen, loaned by the Fondazione Horne, Dante and Boccaccio by Andrea del Castagno, from the Uffizi, the Altarpiece of Bosco ai Frati by Fra Angelico, from the Museum of San Marco, and two precious small panel paintings by Giotto (Saint Francis and Saint John the Baptist) belonging to the Ente Cassa di Risparmio of Florence.

A new ambitious edition of the project “Piccoli, Grandi Musei (Great Small Museums)”, with four exhibitions promoted and produced in the Mugello territory by the Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze