Now at the Art Institute of Chicago, The Medici, Michelangelo, and the Art of Late Renaissance Florence traces the historic and artistic legacy of the Medici family and its own dynasty of dominance throughout the sixteenth century. Under Medici reign, Florence blossomed as the epicenter of European art, gestating such masters as Agnolo Bronzino, Benvenuto Cellini, Giambologna and Michelangelo Buonarroti. The exhibition comes to the United States from a showing at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, and marks the first presentation of works by all of the pre-eminent Italian painters of the period. The extensiveness of this collection of painting, sculpture, drawing and decorative art from 1537 to 1631 stands as a reflection of the enormity in expanse of Medici rule.

The artists of the period have yet to receive the recognition they deserve from the world at large, especially in the United States, where relatively few of their works are exhibited. For the wider public, the treasures of the Medici dynasty remain something of a mystery.

On the compilation of this exhibition, curator Larry Feinberg said, "we wanted to do a show devoted to this period because many people in America are familiar with the Medici, like Lorenzo the Magnificent, and also early Renaissance painters, for example, Botticelli, but few are familiar with late Renaissance Florence or as familiar as they should be." This show should change that situation completely.

While current trend in exhibitions dictates focus on a single work or artist, The Medici, Michelangelo, and the Art of Late Renaissance Florence is conceived with greater ambition, in which every piece vies for primary focus in this century- spanning collection.

Feinberg said, "I hope the public finds the art so beautiful and the Medici so intriguing that they will be interested in finding out more on these characters." The Art Institute's exhibition, with its 200 works, including eight by Michelangelo, is sure to establish the period and its dynasty once and for all in the public's mind as utterly distinctive.

With its preliminary piece, the exhibition successfully expresses the core of the age and its values. Giambologna's Venus statue symbolizes the city of Florence itself. Its fusion of classical ideals and seemingly modern sensuality encompasses the nature of the entire Medici house. The synthesis of the two figures, both Venus and Florence, parallels the merging dimensions of this developing city in the unmistakable language of the Renaissance.

Throughout the exhibition, portraiture provides the viewer with both historicity and psychological insight into the Medici family. The first Medici patriarch appears in Agnolo Bronzino's Duke Cosimo I as Orpheus, Having commissioned the portrait as a wedding gift for his wife, Cosimo is depicted here in nude starkness. His stately figure twists towards the viewer in figura serpintinata posture, suggesting both political power and erotic eminence. In this posing of Cosimo as Orpheus, one finds the conjoining of ancient classical themes with the governing reality of sixteenth- century Florence.

Cosimo's wife also receives treatment in portraiture; she appears in Bronzino's 1545 Eleonora of Toledo and Her Son Giovanni. Bronzino showcases Eleonora's regal stature as an elegant suggestion of her role as the maternal source of future Florentine power. Her position as woman is lauded. Feinberg said, "although by and large women did not have status in society like men, there was a great respect on the part of the Medici for women of intellect and strength." Other such feminine works include Bronzino's 1561 Laura Battiferra degli Ammanati, in which the subject, holding a book of Petrarchan sonnets, sits as symbolic successor in talent of the fourteenth- century poet.

There are several drawings featured by Michelangelo, graceful illuminations of the artist's meticulous method of compositional planning. Candelabrum of 1537 exemplifies this exacting style; it is part of a recent discovery in a box of eighteenth and nineteenth century designs for lighting fixtures found in the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York. This marks the first exhibition of the newly treasured drawings, sources of great international intrigue. The candelabrum was probably a Medici commission for the altar of the New Sacristy in the church of San Lorenzo, planned to house the remains of two elder generations of Medici.

Michelangelo's unfinished wooden Crucifix provides a view into the aging artist's psyche. Carved in Michelangelo's late eighties, the piece insinuates a personal religious reflection, an aura of intimacy not found in the artist's more monumental works.

However, the centerpiece of the collection is undoubtedly Michelangelo's David-Apollo, marking the second time a major sculpture by the artist has traveled to the United States. Its dual title stands in ambiguity as to the identity of the subject. Giorgio Vasari, painter and biographer of Renaissance artists, believed it to be an Apollo "extracting an arrow from his quiver;" however, the work was citied in an inventory of the Medici Palazzo Vecchio as an "unfinished David by Buonarroti."

If the work is indeed a David, it is a definite divergence from Michelangelo's famed earlier treatment of the same subject. Larry Feinberg said, "I think it started out as probably a David and was referred to as David by many people. But, David was a Republican, anti-Medici symbol, and at some point Michelangelo decided to change it to a subject the Medici would find more acceptable." This sculpture's twisted posture and obvious psychological agitation shape the work as a more inward examination of character. Being substantially smaller than the original David, the work's emphasis is transferred from the outer form towards a more centralized, deeper emotion.

Feinberg continued, "It is much more in keeping with his slaves of the Louvre, those Louvre slaves that seem to be in the same way in a sort of fitful slumber. Like the earlier David, it depicts a psychological moment of contemplation before the physical action, that to many of us seems more interesting than the physical action itself."

The dramatic lighting on the part of the Art Institute endows the viewer with a sensation of quasi-voyeurism upon this intensely personal human moment. The exhibit's installation itself is a work of dramatic theater as Renaissance music pervades four of the galleries.

Another gem, Benvenuto Cellini's sculpture Perseus and Medusa of 1545-55 depicts the god triumphant while raising the head of the slain Medusa above his own. The victory of Perseus is a symbolic illustration of Cosimo de' Medici's own victory, the salvation of Florence. The fate of Medusa serves as a harbinger to those who ignore Medici rule. The omnipotence of the family dynasty was here hauntingly realized through artistic expression.

In Alessandro Allori's 1601 painting, Penitent Magdalene, Mary Magdalene kneels before a crucifix, emerging in brilliant illumination from the canvas as if in a spotlight of forgiveness and Christian re-entry. The work's message is delineated in the text that Mary holds, the first line of Psalm 31: "Blessed are those whose sins have been remitted." Notable however, is the monumental scale of Mary Magdalene juxtaposed with the humble crucifix. Allori did not stray from the humanistic trend of the epoch, and perhaps it was this feature that rendered the work appealing to the Medici court. It entered the Grand Ducal collection almost immediately following its completion.

With this expansive art collection of interwoven themes and mediums, it proves a difficult task to untangle the characteristics of Medici taste. Despite the monumental works of the exhibition, Feinberg said, "the Medici did have a strong taste to smaller works and very highly finished, hyper-refined art." Perhaps the 1599-1600 Oval plaque of Piazza Granducale is the quintessence of such proclivity. The subject is also known as the Piazza della Signoria, the square in front of Cosimo's palace. The background of this plaque is a work of pietre dure, or hard-stone inlay. Intricate designs are formulated through the assembly of many semi-precious stones, such as jade and lapus lazuli.

The exhibition concludes with Cristofano Allori's Judith and Holofernes, The story comes from the Old Testament, in which Judith offers herself to the invading Assyrian general Holofernes. He is deceived, and Judith later decapitates Holofernes with his own sword. To Florentines, this tale surely suggested courage and triumph over foreign threats. Feinberg said, "in Italy, Judith was one of the great heroines, a patron of the city." Here Judith stands as like representative of Medici valor.

Possibly no other individual or family has ever been responsible for more artistic production that the Medici. Today, Florence still hails as very much a sixteenth-century city due to the indelible mark left during their reign. Feinberg said, "In addition to the art itself, the great legacy was intellectual tolerance. When it came to ideas, the Medici championed and protected philosophers, poets and artists that may have not been favored by the Church." The extraordinary opportunity the Medici extended to artists has been unequaled; it would be a shame to miss this one here.

"The Medici, Michelangelo, and the Art of Late Renaissance Florence" is on exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan Avenue, now through February 2, 2003, before it travels to the Detroit Institute of Arts. Entry is free with general admission into the museum, $10 adults, $6 students. Tuesdays are free to all. The catalogue is available through the museum in hardcover and paperback. For further information, call (312) 443-3600.

• The art of late Renaissance Florence