DEPICTIONS OF TIME AND TRANSFORMATION: HERRI MET DE BLES' COPPER MINE (AROUND 1535) IN THE FORMER UFFIZI TRIBUNA - DISPLAY CONTEXT AS A KEY TO THE INTERPRETATION OF A WORK OF ART

This text proposes a new reading of Herri met de Bles’ Florentine Copper mine (Fig. 1) and related works, based on the analysis of 16th century discourses on mining and metallurgy, and artefacts from the mining sphere within the collezionismo mediceo1. The Copper mine (referred to in the Uffizi collection documentation as Miniera di rame by Civetta, Herri’s Italian pseudonym) is a mid-sized landscape format, painted in oil on mounted oak wood panels2. The mining plant is situated in
the foreground, whereas the surroundings show a so-called ‘world landscape’ scenery with spectacular rock formations and a large sky that blends into riverbanks or a coastline in the far background.