Galleria degli Uffizi, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe (Florence)
Petrioli Tofani (Anna Maria)

Two volumes (20 cm), I (April 1986): xxx (2), 380 (4) pp. Entries 1E-899E. II (October 1987): (4) pp., pp.383-774 (4), Entries 900E-1795E. Approximately 2100 illustrations. Uniform publisher’s cloth, dust jacket. - A fully illustrated inventory of the 1795 drawings that were once on permanent exhibition in the main galleries of the Uffizi. Until 1913, the drawings in the collection were classified and numbered in five groups: ‘E’ (Esposti, the drawings kept on exhibition, initially among the paintings, then in the Corridoio Vasariano, and after 1890-1893 in the Sala di Niobe), ‘F’ (Figura, a category including anatomical studies, sketches of drapery and details such as faces or hands), ‘O’ (Ornato), ‘P’ (Paese), ‘A’ (Architettura), and ‘S’ (designating the 12,674 drawings presented to the Uffizi in 1866 by Emilio Santarelli). After the ‘E’ drawings were installed in the Sala di Niobe (in glass cases and ‘in due colonne giranti’), the curator, Pasquale Nerino Ferri, began compiling a catalogue. Subsequent curators and visiting authorities, notably Bernard Berenson, made contributions to his manuscript, which is here edited by Annamaria Petrioli Tofani, as a record of the early history of the collection and as the foundation for a complete collection catalogue. In 1991 and 2005 appeared two further volumes, illustrating Disegni di figura; the series, initially financed by the J. Paul Getty Trust, has since been suspended, with curatorial energy redirected into a digitalisation project (Euploos; link). Reviewed by James Byam Shaw, in The Burlington Magazine, volume 129 (June 1987), p. 408; volume 130 (November 1988), pp.862-864. Publisher's retail price €254 (www.olschki.it/libro/9788822234025; link). ¶ Excellent, unmarked copy.