I Medici: il sogno ritorna
Isabelle de Borchgrave a Palazzo Medici Riccardi

texts by Matteo Renzi, Cristina Acidini, Marcel Croës

Florence, Palazzo Medici Riccardi, 15 March-14 June 2009

“The dream started here”: this is how Isabelle de Borchgrave recalls the idea that inspired the exhibition, pointing to Benozzo Gozzoli’s Procession of the Magi in the chapel of the Palazzo Medici Riccardi. It was her encounter with this famous work that inspired the new collection by the Belgian painter and designer, composed of 28 precious paper garments that, along with a ‘fashion show’ inspired by three centuries of Medicean portraits, reproduce some of the most spectacular portraits depicted in the fresco. This exhibition inaugurates the new and organic museum route of the Palazzo Medici Riccardi, which gives visitors the chance to view the enormous rooms of the piano nobile—finally opened to the public—and discover the Chapel of the Magi as they enter through the main doorway. Born in Brussels, De Borchgrave studied at the Centre des Arts Décoratifs and the Académie Royale de Belgique. Since 1994 she has worked on ‘Papiers à la mode’, a collection of paper garments that has been displayed successfully in Europe, North and South America, and Japan.