Mantel clock, case: French workshop, mechanism: Pierre Du Chesne (c. 1650–1730), c. 1675–90, ebony wood veneered and inlaid with tortoiseshell and gilded brass, chased and gilded copper, silk velvet; 66 × 40 × 21 cm. Florence, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Galleria Palatina e Appartamenti Reali, Toilette del Re.

FLORENCE - The exhibition Real Time and the Time of Reality is the product of a desire to draw the public's attention to the important collection of clocks in the prestigious rooms and halls of Palazzo Pitti through the display of a significant selection of timepieces (approximately sixty out of a total of two hundred in the palazzo's collection, most of them with historical links to the palace or acquired as donations to the museum) chosen for their form and use and showcased in an evocative setting alongside the furnishings and paintings of their day.

Gherardo Silvani's monumental figure of Kronos greets visitors in the palace courtyard, pointing the way to the exhibition proper which occupies several rooms in the Duchess of Aosta's Apartment, allowing them to explore the many shapes taken by time down the ages in which this Florentine palace was the residence of three different dynastis: the Medici family, the House of Lorraine and the House of Savoy. 

Mantel clock, case: French workshop, mechanism: Jean François Béeckaert (c. 1720–83), 18th century, gilded bronze, brass, steel; 46.5 × 31 × 21 cm. Florence, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Museo della Moda e del Costume.

Studied primarily as part of the huge legacy of furnishings and works of art in the palace, these clocks, (almost) silent witnesses to the unfolding of events, not only played an important role in regulating the pace of life at court but they were also symbols of their owners' prestige. This study has also made it possible, in the variety of the forms in which they were produced, to appreciate the clocks' outstanding quality from both a scientific and an art historical point of view. 

Thus the timepiece, whose value was already highly symbolic on account of its function, began to seen as embodying the union of the two seemingly opposite poles of science and art, as a union of two parts: on the one hand the clock proper with its increasingly sophisticated and complex movements, and on the other the case, which began life to protect its delicate content but which gradually turned into a fully-fledged objet d'art in its own right and with its own intrinsic value. In order not to neglect the clock's hidden side we felt that it would be useful to introduce the exhibition with a video exploring its living, beating heart, the movement. "Appreciated, also in Florence, not only as often luxurious and exorbitantly expensive objets d'art but also as wonderfully intricate automatisms (right back to the days of Lorenzo the Magnificent, as the sources report), the clocks in the Medici and Lorraine collections project the image of a court in which mechanical and technical skill was no less valued or admired than the creative talent of the goldsmiths who set the movements in complex decorations (often adorned with allegories of Time). Indeed a clockmaker tasked with the maintenance of the precious objects' delicate movements was a salaried member of the court's permanent staff." (E. D. Schmidt, Director of the Gallerie degli Uffizi).

Mantel clock, case: French workshop, mechanism: Meuron & Comp.e, c. 1790–1800, white marble, gilded brass, chased and gilded bronze (clock); veneered olive rootwood, tin, brass, chased, embossed and gilded bronze (case and organ); 73 × 50 × 16 cm. (clock); 51 × 63 × 37 cm. (case). Florence, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Galleria Palatina e Appartamenti Reali, Sala della Carità. 

Before the mechanical clock was perfected, scientists used tools that depended for their functioning on the observation of the stars and planets, the primary focal point associated with the natural passage of time and the alternation of the sun and moon. Thus the exhibition also hosts a broad range of scientific instruments – for instance, a reproduction of Galileo's Jovilabe and a selection of sundials used to measure time before the birth of the clock – from other Florentine museums such as the Museo Galileo and the Museo Stibbert. 

The clockmaker's art held a special fascination for the palace's noble residents, who availed themselves of the best masters working in Italy and abroad, inviting them to court to create unique masterpieces of their art. This special relationship is conjured up in the exhibition by a mantel clock created by Ignatius Huggeford, an Englishman, for Cosimo III in the early years of the 18th century. Displayed in a setting at once spectacular and evocative, the timepieces record the styles of different eras and the changing tastes of the figures who occupied the throne of Grand Duchy of Tuscany. From the sober elegance of the religieuse decorated with the arms of the Medici, its face supported by a winged and bearded Allegory of Time, to the clock depicting the majestic figure of Aurora, the dawn, each piece shows us how important it was to symbolise time in material form. Thus the clock-face became the focal point of a composition which embraced the ceaseless rotary movement of the hands; the primary sources of inspiration for the artisans who created these timepieces were the gods and goddesses of classical mythology and the personification as allegories of abstract notions linked to the passage of time, but also animals with a metaphorical significance, as in the case of the clock resting on an elephant symbolising patience and longevity. 

Mantel clock, case: French workshop, mechanism: France, c. 1810, chased and gilded bronze; 58 × 67 × 21 cm., case 82 × 74 × 31 cm. Florence, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Galleria Palatina e Appartamenti Reali, Sala di Ercole.

The timepieces are juxtaposed with paintings in which visitors can admire clocks similar to those on display but in rich and spectacular settings, thus forming a picture of what they might have looked like in their original context. A good example of this is Laurent Pécheux's large Portrait of Maria of Parma, in which we see a clock-face identical to the one in the timepiece on display here but supported by a rhinoceros rather than an elephant. Also on display are a number of conceptually significant works of art, such as Giorgione's masterpiece The Three Ages of Man in which the notion of the passage of time is conveyed by an enigmatic music lesson, testifying once again to the close bond between music and the passage of time. 

Accompanied by the ticking of the clocks and the idea of hearing the same sounds as those which once echoed in the rooms and halls of Palazzo Pitti when it was still a royal palace, visitors reach the section devoted to the relationship between time and music. If in musical theory the concept of time indicates progression – in other words, the speed at which a piece should be performed – then it was equally important a development when sound devices were applied to the clock's movement so that it would strike the hour every hour on the hour or with even greater frequency. This custom produced some surprising results, with timepieces being used to obtain the best performance from musical instruments. A superb example of this on display in the Sala della Musica is the Orchestrion, a device capable of playing like an orchestra and regulated by the lyre clock on top of it. The creation of musical timepieces was also frequently associated with the use of automatisms, as in the mantel clock in the shape of a bird cage with mechanical coloured birds that mingled clockmaking techniques and movements, guaranteed to astound the audiences of the day. 

Mantel clock, case: French workshop, mechanism: France, c. 1810, chased and gilded bronze; 58 × 67 × 21 cm., case 82 × 74 × 31 cm. Florence, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Galleria Palatina e Appartamenti Reali, Sala di Ercole.

Palazzo Pitti's "in-house" collection of timepieces is perfectly complemented by collectors' donations of important watch collections which began to enter the Tesoro dei Granduchi museum in 1929. A significant selection of these are on display in the exhibition. The watch began to grow in popularity in the early years of the 19th century, until it came to be regarded as a symbol of elegance for men and women alike. In this section too, the watches are displayed alongside paintings that illustrate the way in which these decorative and ornamental accessories were worn to set off the wearer's attire. Also on display, authentic period costumes will show how people dressed in accordance with a strict etiquette, different garments being considered appropriate for different moments in the day. A functional object yet at the same time a precious ornament, the personal timepiece evolved to reflect the social changes that took place in the late 19th century, achieving its final metamorphosis in the wristwatch, a crucial accessory for the hectic lifestyle of the modern era. 

Royal time, in the shape of the precious timepieces in the Grand Ducal and Royal Collections of Palazzo Pitti, comes to a symbolic end in the exhibition with a work by Piero Bernardini entitled Grand Duke Leopoldo II's Departure from Florence in 1859, when the fate of Tuscany and of the Italian peninsula as a whole veered in the direction of national unity. The palace was soon to change its role, making room for the time of reality as it was increasingly transformed from a princely palace into a museum. 

Mantel clock, case and mechanism: Paris workshop, 1810–14, gilded, chased and varnished bronze, gilded brass, enamel, green Genoa marble; 52 × 34 × 12 cm. Florence, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Galleria d'arte moderna di Palazzo Pitti.

Bridging the gap between 19th and 20th centuries is a collection of extremely valuable contemporary jewellery inspired by the theme of time, such as Fausto Maria Franchi's ring Ore perdute or Virginia Tentindò's necklace L'eterno ritorno, Surrealist in insipiration – all of them objects with an important conceptual significance that illustrate novel ways of depicting time. This small digression introduces visitors to the final section of the exhibition, devoted to the 20th century and hosted in the Saloncino delle Statue, a part of the Galleria d'arte Moderna. In this room visitors can explore some of the new ways of perceiving time in the 20th century: alienating time, as for example the time embodied by the figure in Felice Casorati's The Foreigner; rapid, mechanical time as in Fortunato Depero's Book Bound with Two Bolts; or time as an object of obsessive attention as in the opera The Devil in the Belfry, for which an interesting stage set designed by Dino Buzzati is on display. These are only a few of the takes on the modern vision of real time that has taken the place today of the Royal time that still haunts the rooms and halls of Palazzo Pitti thanks to the sound of its clocks. 

The exhibition is curated, and the catalogue – published by Sillabe – is edited, by Enrico Colle and Simonella Condemi; the exhibition is promoted by the Ministero dei beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo with the Gallerie degli Uffizi and Firenze Musei. 

13 September 2016 – 8 January 2017

Two-handed amphora night clock, Paris, c. 1810–20, gilded and painted bronze; 54 × 40 cm., base 16 × 16 cm. Florence, Museo Stibbert.

Orchestrion, Viennese workshop and Christian Seyffert, 1821 (music roll after 1831), wood veneered with mahogany, carved and gilded wood inserts, metal; 215 × 144 × 58 cm. (case); 67 × 40 × 25 cm. (clock). Florence, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Galleria d'arte moderna di Palazzo Pitti.