Mandragora

31 October 1737 Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici, the Electress Palatine and last descendant of the grand ducal branch of the Medici, refused to stand by and watch the end of the dynasty that had marked the destiny of Florence for more than four centuries.She responded to the approaching Austrian rule by the House of Lorraine with a legal act under which all the assets that formed part of the Medici collections were bound to the city of Florence, establishing it definitively as a city of art.The protagonist of this book is the history of Florence, from its origins to that fateful day, narrated in the first person by the Electress Palatine herself, accompanied by her inquisitive and loyal servant Maria.

The catalogue is the narrative guide for the exhibition held in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana dedicated to cocoa – one of the most precious treasures from the New World – as described and narrated in Brother Bernardino de Sahagún’s work. According to Aztec mythology, cocoa has a divine origin, closely connected to the god Quetzalcóatl. Maps and archaeological, historical, artistic and artisan artefacts tell the story of chocolate, from the Mesoamerica of the Olmecs to the ‘bean to bar’ movement, a beacon of hope in respect to ‘the Other’.