Revealing the Early Renaissance: Stories and Secrets in Florentine Art

Bernardo Daddi. Italian (Florentine), about 1280-1348. The virgin Mary with Saints Thomas Aquinas and Paul. Tempera and gold leaf on panel, 121.6 x 113 cm. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

March 16 – June 16, 2013
ART GALLERY OF ONTARIO
317 Dundas Street West
Toronto, ON M5T 1G4
T: 416.979.6648
www.ago.net
Hours: Tue & Thurs–Sun 10–5:30, Wed 10–8:30

Both The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times have lauded Revealing the Early Renaissance: Stories and Secrets in Florentine Art as one of the most important exhibitions of recent times. Co-organized by the Getty Museum and the Art Gallery of Ontario, this spectacular exhibition sheds light on the artists who gave birth to the Renaissance — changing art, and the world, forever.

The exhibition comprises more than 90 key pieces from the first half of the 14th century, including Giotto’s five-panel Peruzzi Altarpiece and his Madonna of San Giorgio alla Costa, two painted manuscripts of Dante’s Divine Comedy, and Bernardo Daddi’s Virgin Mary with Saints Thomas Aquinas and Paul.

Revealing the Early Renaissance includes manuscripts that have never left Florence before and that are very rarely on view in the city where they were created. These monumental works of art, evocative of painting in three dimensions, have spent most of their lives closed and thus survive in pristine condition. Their painted pages serve as a magnificent window on 14th-century Florence. The exhibition also features an interactive map with touch screen that will allow visitors to explore the places where Renaissance Florence intersects with the Florence of today.

Curated by Christine Sciacca, assistant curator of manuscripts at the J. Paul Getty Museum, together with coordinating curator Sasha Suda, assistant curator of European art at the AGO, Revealing the Early Renaissance: Stories and Secrets in Florentine Art brings to life recent discoveries about artistic techniques and studio practice in Florence between 1300 and 1350.

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