federigoThe show, conceived and curated by the same director of the Museum Rosanna Caterina Proto Pisani, will present the works of the painter, copyist and restorer Frederick Angels who, with his father’s workshop, took part in the restoration of the decorations of the palace at the beginning of last century.
The antiquarian Elia Volpi bought Davanzati Palace in 1904 and devoted himself to its restoration with great passion for five long years, generously investing money and effort and maintaining great secrecy about the progress of work so it does not came news of his rival Stefano Bardini, which was simultaneously restoring the Torre del Gallo.

The design of the antiquarian Elia Volpi was to transform the palace Davanzati perfect evocation of the ancient Florentine house. Order called many workers to work on its restoration, which made possible the realization of his dream. Among these restorer Silvio Zanchi, other skilled artisans (glaziers, carpenters, decorators) and the workshop of the Angels. These works give the rooms a special taste of furnishing and decoration, in keeping with the style promoted by the Anglo-American community in Florence in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, which belonged to personalities such as Acton, Herbert Horne, Charles Loeser. The Anglo-American presence in Florence in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century would indeed contribute significantly to the salvation of the palace from demolition of the old town and the creation of a taste and a style inspired by the Florentine character of the glorious past of the city promoting the development of crafts through the collection of works of art and revivals.
The Palace of Davizzi, then the Davanzati, asserted itself immediately as a model not only in the wall decorations, repeated by Frederick angels on the walls of Castel del Diavolo Julius Rolshoven, but also the furniture. Furniture, chairs, chests, carved busts, paintings, capable of suggesting the daily lives of those families who had made great medieval and Renaissance Florence, were revived and imitated them.

The lucky auction Elia Volpi in New York and the arrival of the furnishings of the Palace Brothers Angels in America were able to revive with new life and energy, the evocation dream of a world past. Great was the substance of the workshop of the Angels in the wide dissemination of a style and a taste that lasted until the eve of the fifties. From Palm Beach in Florida in Saint Jean Cap Ferrat on the French Riviera, the walls of the villas of the nouveaux riches Americans (Cosden, Singer) were populated by trees, birds, orchards taken from the rooms painted in the Palazzo Davanzati, uniform in furnishing their dwellings to the ‘style Davanzati’.
The exhibition is staged at the ground floor of Palazzo Davanzati and is divided into several sections. Detailed analysis is devoted to the personality of Frederick the Angels and the work of his shop, while the section with sketches, drawings and magazine describes the work carried out by the Angels in the villas of wealthy Americans and the spread of ‘taste Davanzati ‘overseas.

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From Monday to Sunday, hours 8,15-13,50
Closed the second and fourth Sunday of the month and the first, third, fifth Monday of each month, 1 May, Christmas.

Museo di Palazzo Davanzati
Via Porta Rossa 13
Florence (FI)
Tel: 055/294883