Giovan Battista Foggini at Palazzo medici Riccardi

Florence celebrates the multifaceted genius of Giovan Battista Foggini (1652 – 1725) with a monographic exhibition at Palazzo Medici Riccardi, organized on the occasion of the third centenary of the artist’s death.
Foggini was one of the most influential artists of late-Medici Florence, dedicating himself to various disciplines and excelling in all of them.
He studied at the Accademia Medicea in Rome, founded by Cosimo III de’ Medici and later returned to Florence where he became a grand-ducal sculptor and court architect. He was also the director of the Manifatture di Galleria, those workshops created by the Medici for the production of works inlaid with semiprecious stones or made with precious metals.
The exhibition itinerary includes over 80 works that explore the artist’s activity as a sculptor - with works in marble, bronze and terracotta - as an architect and designer and producer of very precious objects in semiprecious stones and metals.

The exhibition, open until September 9, 2025, includes works from prestigious international collections including the Louvre Museum in Paris, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden and the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich, as well as Italian collections such as those of the Uffizi Gallery and the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence, the Museo Poldi Pezzoli in Milan and the Istituto Centrale per la Grafica in Rome.
Gathered together, these works help us understand how Foggini became a role model for young Florentine artists and contributed to shaping the artistic language of late-Medici Florence.