Andrew Johnson's RENAISSANCE IN TUSCANY
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Remarkable Museum in Pienza (Tuscany)

9/7/2012

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Does the name 'Diocesan Museum', or 'Museo Diocesano', bring to mind dusty rooms of endless candlesticks and tarnished silver reliquaries?  NOT HERE!   The 'Museo Diocesano di Pienza', in southern Tuscany,  is more than an undiscovered gem, peaceful and beautifully arranged;  its collection includes artworks any great museum would be proud to display.


We re-visited the little museum a few days ago: every time we are impressed all over again -- and shake our heads in dismay that it gets too few visitors.   If you are in Pienza,  don't miss it!!   


Pienza is famous for its renaissance piazza and cathedral, for its scenery (and food!), but there is more. This museum has the great good fortune to hold treasures of the early Italian renaissance provided by Pope Pius II (pope 1458-1464) to his newly-built cathedral.    There are magnificent works of great renaissance goldsmiths, works that in their day were valued more than the paintings we so much admire today -- the splendid bishop's pastoral staff illustrated here, for instance, and the huge reliquary head of Saint Andrew made originally for a prominent place in St. Peter's at the Vatican in Rome, no less.  There is an astonishing cope ('piviale') or bishop's ceremonial cloak from about 1300, embroidered in England as a royal gift,  one of the works of so-called 'opus anglicanum' that were among the greatest artistic luxuries of their times -- few of which remain, in great collections such as the Victoria and Albert in London, but among them this Pienza cope takes pride of place.  It has just recently been gently cleaned and put into a new display, beautifully lit for seeing its numerous fascinating figures in gold thread and subtle colours: that is what we went to see, and it alone is worth a visit.


But the museum as a whole, its 'ensemble', is more than the sum of even such splendid parts.   Its diverse paintings  illustrate the development and history of medieval-to-renaissance art not only in period -- that one can see elsewhere too, although often smothered by the sheer bulk on view -- but also in the different types of artworks, for varying purposes from monumental crosses hung  high in churches' naves to delicious small triptychs meant for the personal devotion of wealthy patrons, from grand altarpieces (or 'pale') to a very rare surviving portable folding altarpiece with scenes patterned on Duccio's huge altarpiece for the Siena cathedral.   All the forms of late-medieval and early renaissance art ... paintings, sculpture, goldsmithery, tapestries, illuminated manuscripts, emroidered papal vestments ...  can be appreciated together, more as they were appreciated and understood in their own times than in the nineteenth-century-model-museums  (however wonderful they may be) still separating painting, sculpture, and so-called 'decorative arts' into distinct curatorial empires:   No headline-grabbing Michelangelo, no Leonardo, no Botticelli, admittedly:  but a remarkable collection well worth a contemplative hour (or more).


All brought together in the first floor rooms of a small fifteenth century palazzo, simply renovated (with modern security), entered through a lovely, peaceful cortile (courtyard) just off Pienza's main piazza.   But it is too easy to miss: the name seems fusty, its entry is too-discreetly marked, unadvertised and linked with a town tourist information office, and glancing through the entry portal gives no hint of what may be found within.   Nevertheless, don't just pass by:  SEE IT !!


Here is a helpful link:  http://www.museiinmostra.it/MuseoPienza.html  


[ Photo image from http://www.museiinmostra.it/MuseoPienza.html ]

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Altar of San Giovanni Restored in Florence -- and much more at the Museo dell'Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore

4/7/2012

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We happily spent a few days in Florence over the festa of  San Giovanni Battista (Florence's patron saint)  -- a highlight that anyone can enjoy visiting Florence in years to come is the newly restored silver 'altar' of San Giovanni, back on view in the Museo dell'Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore (the cathedral of Florence) after six years of painstaking restoration.   The results are magnificent!!   

Technically speaking, it is not an altar but an enormous and enormously rich, complex altar frontal -- over three meters long, all of silver with dozens of figures of angels, prophets, saints surrounding twelve scenes from the life of Saint John the Baptist and large central figure of the saint.   It took over a century to complete, involving the most renowned goldsmiths of the late fourteenth century through the great renaissance artists Michelozzo, Antonio del Pollaiolo, and Verrochio.   To our eyes, one of the greatest differences is how wonderfully many figures stand out against cleaned coloured enamel backgrounds of their niches.  But the whole 'altar' is stunning, beautifully displayed and lit.   

Visitors to the Museo can see the 'altar' any day, unlike people of the renaissance itself: for centuries, it was only displayed on Florence's greatest annual event, the June 24 celebration of San Giovanni, and occasional other major days.

And, if you do not know the Museo dell'Opera, it is one of the very best in Florence -- which means one of the best in the world, really -- even though over-shadowed in fame by the Uffizi, the Bargello, and the unfortunate Accademia burdened by throngs wishing only to say they have seen 'The David'.   Yet the Museo displays a wealth of extraordinary works originally on and in the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore and  the Baptistery of San Giovanni -- renaissance masterpieces by Donatello, Ghiberti, Luca della Robbia, and the list goes on (yes, Michelangelo too).  To boot, it is one of the most simply enjoyable museums in town, with unusually good explanations of many of the works: and due -- with its expansion completed in 2015, we hope -- to become remarkable for displaying great masterpieces in a recreated context evoking their original locations on the cathedral facade and its facing baptistery, and their original meanings for renaissance observers, not simply as museum pieces.

In the meantime, another treat is in store: the great 'Doors of Paradise' by Ghiberti from the Baptistery, under piecemeal restoration for many years, are due to be unveiled on September 8 this year as, once more, a complete portal in the Museo dell'Opera.  (Not coincidentally, September 8 is the anniversary of the historic commitment in 1296 (or 1298) to build the new cathedral, on the religious celebration of the birth of Mary.)

Here is the link to the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, the museum and more --  http://museo.operaduomo.fi.it/ -- with tantalizing images of some of its glories which inevitably fall far short of their impact 'in person': especially, I think, for sculptures more than paintings, and even more especially for sculptures made for particular locations, fulfilling religious and civic purposes.   Remember, the Museo dell'Opera is the immediate neighbour of the cathedral still today maintained by the Opera (offic: see and appreciate them together. 

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