The Art Newspaper

Still-life in a coma

The opulent villa commissioned by Lorenzo de' Medici at Poggio a Caiano is already in disrepair despite being only four years old

By Tina Lepri.

The Medici villa at Poggio a Caiano

The museum of still-life painting in the Medici villa at Poggio a Caiano (23km west of Florence) is already in disrepair despite being only four years old. There were 40,000 visitors in 2008 when the entrance fee was only 2 euros, and, oddly, attendance has dwindled significantly since it became free. The museum is the only one of its kind in Europe and displays 200 works that were dug up from the warehouses of the Uffizi galleries and Palazzo Pitti. Between the 17th and 18th centuries, the Medici family collected still-life paintings by Italian artists such as Bartolomeo Bimbi, Andrea Scacciati and Margherita Caffi—hardly household names—and some Flemish and Dutch painters. The villa's furnished rooms include one dedicated to the famous Medici pope Leone X, which is decorated with frescos by Jacopo Pontormo, Alessandro Allori and Andrea del Sarto.

The opulent villa was commissioned by Lorenzo de' Medici and begun by Giuliano da Sangallo in 1485. Its spacious park is neglected and the villa's walls are largely covered by scaffolding set up restore the terraces. The building is now divided into two parts: the furnished rooms on the ground floor and the still-life museum on the first floor, which occupies 16 rooms. Only the museum part has air conditioning, and while the villa as a whole is kept clean, it suffers from a notable lack of facilities for visitors and poor management of the works on display.

Visiting times are limited to one hour for the still life collection and another for the furnished rooms. You are taken round by a warder whose duties are limited to opening doors and keeping an eye on you. He does not give you any information, nor are there audio or written guides. There are, however, extensive and well written wall texts (also translated into English) detailing the Medici's history of collecting. Most of the works, which are themselves quite dark, are poorly lit—details in many of the paintings hanging in what used to be game larder and kitchen are barely visible. One of the most fascinating items on display is the Medici “citrus catalogue”, a comprehensive collection of images all varieties of citrus fruit known at the time, although that too is in the gloom.

The bookshop is hard to find. It offers a detailed catalogue for €69, a smaller one at €8, a book on the Medici family (available also in English) for €15, and little else. There is a self service bar with drinks dispensers, but if you are hungry you have to make your way to the bars and restaurants outside the park. The toilets, which are clean but lacking a signpost, are on the ground floor, but baby changing facilities are only to be found in the gardens.

In theory, booking is required, but visitors never reach the 45-person limit and you can therefore just turn up. The villa is closed on the second and third Mondays of the month, although visiting hours change on a seasonal basis. It is therefore best to call on +39 0558 77 012. Until February the visiting hours are from 8:30am to 3:30pm.