Thomas Patch, The Memories of Middle Ages and Renaissance

To mark the three-hundredth anniversary of his birth, Florence is paying tribute to the English painter, engraver, dealer and connoisseur Thomas Patch (Exeter, 1725–Florence, 1782) and his close ties with the city in an exhibition entitled Thomas Patch, The Memories of Middle Ages and Renaissance held at theStefano Bardini Museum from 3 October to 15 December 2025. The exhibition is coordinated by Carlo Francini and Valentina Zucchi.

Patch settled in Florence in 1755 after a period in Rome marked by papal expulsion. He made the city on the Arno his chosen homeland. A prominent figure within Sir Horace Mann’s English-speaking circle, Patch was a painter of landscapes, a caricaturist and a scholar of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Tuscan masters. He anticipated their critical rediscovery in the nineteenth century.

Bringing the printed works and detached frescoes back before the public highlights Thomas Patch’s sensibility — he was a refined artist, connoisseur, and disseminator who spread the memory of, and desire for, Florence throughout Europe. His work, which is associated with the Grand Tour and in close dialogue with English collecting, thus enters into an ideal conversation with Stefano Bardini. Bardini built his career in the nineteenth century on the recovery and promotion of ancient works and detached frescoes, and the civic museum is dedicated to him.