Florence and its painters: From Giotto to Leonardo da Vinci

Aristocratic families increased their wealth and power by marrying into competing dynasties. In the 14th and 15th centuries, they practically ruled the Italian city of Florence. They were also important patrons of the arts, commissioning portraits of their family members, such the one above by Piero del Pollaiolo from circa 1475-80.

To have your portrait painted by a renowned artist was seen a symbol of prestige, which is why all rich Florentines wanted to be immortalized in a painting like the one shown above of an unknown young man portrayed by Filippino Lippi circa 1485. The artists' workshops hired painters and apprentices to fill the heavy demand.

Banker Cosimo de' Medici — portrayed above in a relief by an unknown artist — was one of the most powerful men of the Renaissance. Members of his influential family occupied the most important offices in Florence. They controlled the guilds, ran the largest banking houses and steered the fate of the Florentine Republic through skillful patronage.

Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli painted the "Lamentation of Christ" between 1490 and 1495 on soft, light poplar wood. The expressive original colors of this work owned by the Bavarian State Painting Collections were revealed through restoration.

The exhibition also presents drawings. This sketch of a horse, made by Leonardo da Vinci, is a study of the animal's movements and muscles, which he aimed to reproduce realistically. For his anatomy studies, he even had corpse washers show him the internal organs of dead people. The artist ran a large workshop in Florence in the 15th century.

The painting "Adoration of the Magi" by Sandro Boticellli is one of the treasures of the Alte Pinakothek exhibition, on show through January 27, 2019. It depicts a biblical scene — but the people portrayed are Botticelli's contemporaries. Among others, Cosimo de' Medici, his son and his grandson were identified.