In 1545–46 Cosimo I de’ Medici set up two tapestry workshops in Florence, keen for his home city to outdo the Netherlands in the production of monumental woven marvels. He enlisted two Flemish master weavers, Nicholas Karcher and Jan Rost, to run the workshops, and between 1546–49 Rost oversaw the weaving of a scene – more than five metres high and nearly five metres wide – depicting the meeting of Dante and Virgil early in Dante’s Inferno, after a design by the Florentine Mannerist Francesco Salviati. The Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA) acquired the tapestry in 1915 from a posthumous sale of J.P. Morgan’s collection, but because of its fragility it has been hidden from the public since 1959. After extensive conservation it is going on display for six months, allowing us to see the largest Italian Renaissance artwork in the United States for the first time in decades (11 July–31 January 2027).
Find out more from MIA’s website.
Preview below | View Apollo’s Art Diary
