Spotlight: The Renaissance Collection

Walking through our gallery wing, visitors often pause before a particular painting—a small oil on panel depicting the Madonna and Child, created in Florence around 1485. The work is beautiful, certainly, but what makes people stop isn't just the artistry. It's the story of how this painting, and the dozen other Renaissance works surrounding it, came to be here.

The Beginning: A Single Purchase

Our family's Renaissance collection began in 1923 with my great-grandfather, Vittorio Mammela. On a business trip to Florence, he wandered into a small gallery near the Ponte Vecchio and saw a portrait—a young Florentine woman, painted around 1520, artist unknown. Something about her direct gaze and the painting's simple elegance spoke to him.

Vittorio wasn't a trained art historian or a sophisticated collector. He was a businessman who happened to have an eye for beauty and the means to acquire it. He bought the portrait for what was then a substantial sum, had it shipped home, and hung it in his study. He never imagined he was starting a collection that would span three generations.

The Collector's Education

That first purchase sparked something in Vittorio. He began reading voraciously about Renaissance art, corresponding with scholars, attending auctions, and developing relationships with dealers in Italy and across Europe. He learned to look beyond mere beauty to understand context, attribution, provenance, and historical significance.

His second purchase, made five years later, showed his growth as a collector. The Madonna and Child panel I mentioned earlier was attributed to a follower of Ghirlandaio—not a masterwork, but a significant example from a important Florentine workshop. Vittorio had learned that meaning often matters more than fame.

Building a Cohesive Collection

My grandfather, Alessandro, inherited both the collection and his father's passion for Renaissance art. But where Vittorio collected somewhat haphazardly, following his instincts, Alessandro brought scholarly rigor to the endeavor. He decided the collection should tell a story—specifically, the story of Florentine painting from roughly 1450 to 1550.

Over thirty years, he carefully acquired works that filled gaps in this narrative. A small tondo attributed to the workshop of Botticelli. A predella panel from an altarpiece. A portrait by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio. A preparatory drawing for a larger work by Domenico Puligo. Each piece added a thread to the story he was weaving.

Alessandro also commissioned conservation work on the collection, bringing in experts to clean, restore, and properly preserve these 500-year-old artworks. He built the climate-controlled gallery wing specifically to house them. He understood that collecting art means accepting responsibility for its preservation.

The Collection Today

As the current curator of the family collection, I see myself as a temporary guardian of these works. My approach differs from both my grandfather and great-grandfather. While they actively acquired, I focus on stewardship, scholarship, and access.

We've loaned pieces to major exhibitions at museums worldwide. Scholars regularly visit to study specific works. We've created a detailed online catalog with high-resolution images and scholarly essays, making the collection accessible to anyone with an internet connection. And we've established a conservation endowment to ensure these works will be properly cared for in perpetuity.

The Stories Within

What makes this collection special isn't the monetary value or even the artistic merit of individual pieces—it's the accumulated knowledge, passion, and stories. That Madonna and Child panel? We now know it was originally part of a larger altarpiece, separated during the Napoleonic Wars. Another painting traveled from Florence to London to New York before finding its way here. Each work has its own history, its own journey.

And of course, there's our family's story woven through it all. The businessman who followed his instinct. The scholar who brought discipline to passion. The current generation trying to balance preservation with accessibility. In a way, the collection is as much about us as it is about Renaissance Florence.

Looking Forward

We're currently planning a special exhibition for next year's heritage gala—a comprehensive show featuring the entire Renaissance collection, accompanied by scholarly essays and historical context. We're also working with several universities to create an educational program that allows art history students to study these works firsthand.

These paintings survived 500 years. They'll likely survive 500 more. Our job is simply to care for them during our brief time as their custodians, and to share them with others who might find in them the same beauty and meaning that first captured my great-grandfather's attention a century ago.