A show of 15th-century Madonnas has opened at the Quirinale presidential palace in Rome to mark twenty years of national art restoration efforts.
It includes a Virgin with Child, discovered in Fiesole near Florence, so delicately and skillfully rendered as to be attributed to Renaissance master Filippo Brunelleschi, as well as later masterpieces by Jacopo Sansovino. Mounted in the so-called Sala delle Bandiere (Flag Room) at the presidential palace, the show is to be inaugurated on May 10th by Italy’s president, Giorgio Napolitano, to celebrate the 20-year anniversary of the Association for the Restoration of the Italian Artistic National Heritage (in its Italian acronym, ARPAI).
Curated by Louis Godard, the exhibit highlights the relationship between eight ‘model’ masterpieces and their derivations, showing how some works generated a following, sometimes executed in poorer materials and aimed at a broader, though not any less esthetically demanding, public. In the case of the Fiesole Madonna and Child, this polychrome terracotta statue dating to the beginning of the 15th century became the prototype of a vast series of specially commissioned artefacts, produced in the workshops of various masters.
Discovered by chance during a site visit at the Fiesole Bishopric, it was restored to its original splendor thanks to the Florence-based Pietre Dure workshop, which is financed by ARPAI.
The late art historian, Luciano Bellosi, tentatively attributed it to Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446), the architect, sculptor and engineer who invented linear perspective and, along with Donatello and Masaccio, was one of the three great initiators of the Florentine Renaissance.
This magnificent Madonna is the forerunner of many important 15th century works, five of which, chosen for their beauty as well as their strict adherence to the model, are on loan by museums, churches, and private collections in Tuscany. The show also includes two masterpieces by leading Venetian architect Jacopo Sansovino (1486-1570), who was admired by Palladio and Vasari: a high-relief monochrome terracotta Madonna and Child dating from 1555, unearthed in a villa near Padua, and a highly refined papier mache’ relief of the same subject, produced in the artist’s atelier. Both have been restored thanks to ARPAI funding. Founded in 1989, ARPAI has sponsored and overseen the restoration of almost 200 works of art throughout Italy.
The exhibit is on view until June 19.
ansa may 15 – 09:54 am