Wednesday 12 December 2018, 6.30 pm, presentation and exhibition of the work in the rooms of the Lercaro Collection, in via Riva di Reno 57, Bologna.
The Fondazione Lercaro and the Zoni Institute of Bologna are pleased to present the exhibition, in the museum spaces of the Lercaro Collection, of the splendid table by Simone di Filippo Benvenuti called “dei Crocifissi” (Bologna, 1330 ca-1399) depicting the Coronation of the Virgin.
It is a tempera on panel signed and dated 1382, kept by the Sisters of Charity of Santa Giovanna Antida Thouret inside the premises of the Zoni Institute of Bologna, built next to the small church of Santa Maria Incoronata, in the stretch of walls between Porta San Vitale and Porta San Donato.
Restored by the Lercaro Foundation from the laboratory of Camillo Tarozzi under the High Supervision of the Superintendence of Archeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the metropolitan city of Bologna, courtesy of the Istituto Zoni, this small but precious painting now enters the museum’s itinerary Lercaro collection to show everyone in the deep delicacy of the colors and in the rich symbolism of the meanings.
The work, which arrived at the Church of the Incoronata in 1669 and placed on the main altar to replace the ancient and now ruined fresco from which the devotion to Mary Regina originated, according to the sources came from the house of the Tertiary nuns of the Annunciation in Borgo Orfeo, who had sold it in exchange for a copy of the original made by a painter of the time.
Replaced in turn with a copy, since the end of the twentieth century they had lost track of them until last year.
This is how Guido Zucchini first described it in 1934, on the pages of the magazine “Il Comune di Bologna”: “It is a work of maturity of the artist. The Redeemer and the Virgin are seated on a bench covered with a silky cloth; the first with the left holds the scepter, with his right hand he places the crown at the head of the Madonna, bowed his head in obedience, his hands in submission submissive. A rich drapery, stretched behind the counter or throne, reveals some stars from the sky. On the high, eight angels, four on each side, bow their heads symmetrically in adoration. ”
The theme of the Coronation of the Virgin, which usually constitutes the final scene of the cycles dedicated to her, after her death and her assumption in heaven, finds her iconographic and devotional autonomy starting from the XIII century, taken from the ancient text Transitus Virginis and then spread by the Golden Legend of Jacopo da Varagine.
Mary, who is equally mother and daughter of God, at the same time becomes a symbol of humanity saved and glorified through the sacrifice of Christ, and of the Church, his bride. Thus the words of the Song of Songs (4.8) are fulfilled: “Come from Lebanon, wife, come from Lebanon, come, you will be crowned”.
In Simone dei Crocifissi, iconography is frequent. However, the rediscovered painting presents a very high pictorial quality and an extraordinary preservation integrity.
Info
Lercaro Collection – Via Riva di Reno 57 – Bologna
Tel. 051 6566210 – 211
Museum opening hours:
Thursday and Friday, 10 am-1pm
Saturday and Sunday, 11-18.30
free admission
Open: December 8th (10 am-1pm), December 26th (11 am-6.30pm), December 27th and 28th (10 am-1pm), December 29th and 30th (11 am-6.30pm).
Closed: 24, 25, 31 December 2018 and 1 January 2019.
From Thursday 3 January the openings will again follow the ordinary timetable.
