L’altra metà del cielo

The mystical and devotional side of the Martelli family, through the powerful women Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi, Caterina de’ Ricci, Giuliana Falconieri and Eleonora Ramirez de Montalvo, who lived between the 15th and 16th centuries, and subsequently became saints. The collections from the Florentine Museums unveil a series of unexpected wonders, and smaller museums such as Casa Martelli are not an exception.

The exhibition focuses on the cults dedicated to the saints and beatified Florentine women, and the surrounding artistic expressions found in chapels, shrines and altars in the churches of Florence. The cult reached the Grand Duke court, where the ruling widows of the 17th century first, then with Vittoria della Rovere and Elettrice Palatina, were practising religion with an astounding number of objects for the public, private, personal and collective cult.