EnglishA very special event is taking place on December 21st, 2019 in Florence, at 3:00 pm.
St. Mark’s English Church is hosting a wonderful show to remember the last great feast held in the Medici Palace in 1539, when the sumptuous wedding of Cosimo I de’ Medici with Leonora de Toledo was celebrated. Not only will the show be a historical representation of Cosimo meeting Leonora and asking for her left hand, but also a great performance of Reinassance dance and opera pieces, in typical Reinassance costumes. The reception was grand, as Francesco Giambullari described in a letter to Giovanni Bandini, dated and printed in the same year of the wedding.
The Artistic Director is Sofía Grande, and the coreography is designed by the dancing couple interpreting the protagonists, Marco Bendoni and Bruna Gondoni. They are accompanied by the dancers Beatrice Brignani and Sherazade Soriano, representing two ladies at the Grand Duke’s court. The typical XVI-century music is composed by Lorenzo Allegri, Pierre Attaignant, Francesco Corteccia, Andrea Falconieri and Michael Praetorius. The opera singer is Saray Garcia, and the costumes are designed by Sara Benitez and Barbara Llopis.
The event is uniquely designed for the 500-year anniversary of Cosimo I de’ Medici’s birth, to let everyone in Florence meet the art, history and culture of Italian Reinassance.