The world of craftsmanshipThe Museum of Russian Icons has been inaugurated in Palazzo Pitti, with the tablets that belonged to the Medici and Lorraine collections. There are 78 icons, dated between the end of the sixteenth century and the middle of the eighteenth century, which constitute a conspicuous collection in Europe. After a long period of oblivion, they can now be seen, in an evocative setting, in four rooms on the ground floor of Palazzo Pitti, decorated with specially restored 17th century frescoes. They are works of domestic devotion, often of small size, which allow to approach the Orthodox spirituality that has many iconographic affinities with Western sacred works. Among the most suggestive works, executed by workshops specialized in this sector, there is a calendar of Orthodox religious feasts, with a six-monthly division, called Menologio, which illustrates sacred episodes and stories of saints.
