The Crimson Red is the background of the rooms dedicated to Caravaggio and the 17th century painting at the Uffizi Gallery

It is an ancient and regal red, which is often found in the fabrics represented in the paintings, but it is also the blood red that flows from the Medusa or from the head of Holofernes.

THE SCHOOL OF CARAVAGGIO AND HIS "SACRIFICE OF ISAAC"

In this section you can find paintings by the Florentine school combined with the painting of the rest of Italy and Europe that show the international character of Medici collecting. Each room has an evocative name that characterizes it. It starts with the room "Between reality and magic" where there are paintings by artists from the Po Valley with grotesque and bizarre subjects such as the "Man with Monkey" by Carracci or the "Allegory of Hercules" by Dossi. In the following room named "Caravaggio and Artemisia" we meet the astonishing "Decapitation of Holofernes" by Artemisia Gentileschi, the beautiful "David and Goliath" by Guido Reni and the "Sacrifice of Isaac" by Caravaggio.

THE "SHIELD WITH THE HEAD OF MEDUSA" BY CARAVAGGIO

The lion's part certainly does the "Medusa Room" where the magnificent parade shield with the head of Medusa painted by Caravaggio, accompanied by "the head of snakes" by the Dutchman Otto Marseus, once attributed to Leonardo da Vinci and the "Armida" by Cecco Bravo. The fourth room always features Caravaggio with the "Bacchus" and still life paintings, with works by Jacopo da Empoli, Carlo Dolci and Velasquez.

THE GOLDEN CENTURY OF DUTCH ART

Very stricking is the fifth room entitled "Candlelight" with paintings that represent scenes lit by candles where stands out "the Nativity" by Gherardo delle Notti. The sixth room is dedicated to the greatest artists of the Dutch school of the seventeenth century: Rubens, Rembrandt and Van Dyck, masters of portraiture.

The Florentine portraiture is instead the subject of the penultimate room with the beautiful portraits of Galileo Galilei, Cosimo II and Mary Magdalene of Austria by Justus Sustermans, portraitist of the Grad Ducal court.

If you want to visit the Uffizi Gallery with a private guide, please click here