Pisa, Palazzo Blu acquires important work by Orazio Riminaldi for its collection

A remarkable new acquisition for Palazzo Blu in Pisa. In fact, the Pisa Foundation, which runs the museum on the riverfront, has acquired an important painting by Orazio Riminaldi (Pisa, 1593 - 1630), The Good Samaritan, a work from 1625-1630 that becomes part of Palazzo Blu’s museum itinerary after careful restoration. The arrival of Riminaldi’s work comes a year after theacquisition of Artemisia Gentileschi’s Christ and the Samaritan Woman at the Well . Riminaldi, a painter from Pisa who trained in Rome in the most important workshops of the time and returned to Pisa to create the dome of Pisa cathedral, was featured in a recent exhibition in Pisa, and The Good Samaritan represents a relatively recent addition to his catalog.

The painting, attributed to Riminaldi by Pierluigi Carofano and Franco Paliaga in the early 2000s, depicts the Good Samaritan who in Luke’s Gospel (X:30-37) cares for the wayfarer attacked by robbers and left dying on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. The Samaritan is depicted as he pours a mixture of oil and wine into the wound of the wayfarer, lying naked diagonally in the composition of the scene. The iconography of the Gospel episode knows a fair amount of fortune in the years of the great epidemics, which with the rise of modern medicine can be read as the rendering of aid by people truly capable of restoring health, as opposed to deceitful charlatans. From this perspective, Pierluigi Carofano suggests that the commissioner or destination of the painting is related to the world of medicine. From a stylistic point of view, the work shows clear affinities with Riminaldi’s mature production, between 1625 and 1630: the Good Samaritan owes much to the lesson of European Caravaggism, diluted, however, by the lesson of Carracci, Lanfranco and Guercino toward a gentler, more meditated style.

"The Good Samaritan," stresses Stefano Renzoni, art historian and editor of the volume that collects the studies carried out on the painting, “is part of a constellation of interventions carried out by the Pisa Foundation with the aim of re-evaluating a historical-artistic period, that of Medici Pisa, traditionally considered poor in significant episodes for our city. Purchases of works, exhibitions and related catalogs made over the years, express a non-trivial effort on the part of the Foundation to reassign the right value to a historical period that was very important for Pisa and animated by leading artists.”

The Pisa Foundation has produced a publication with the results of the study and restoration of Riminaldi’s painting, which will be available from today at the Palazzo Blu bookshop: Orazio Riminaldi, The Good Samaritan, De Luca editori d’Arte. On the occasion of the presentation, Palazzo Blu’s art collection, within which The Good Samaritan has been placed, will be open to visitors free of charge from Thursday, Nov. 23, through Sunday, Nov. 26. Opening hours are: Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Last admission one hour before the palace closes. For info: palazzoblu.it.

"The Good Samaritan," says Cosimo Bracci Torsi, president of Palazzo Blu, “is the latest splendid painting by Orazio Riminaldi, purchased by the Pisa Foundation, to enter our collection. It joins the others by the same author already present and goes to enrich the nucleus of works representative of a great moment of painting, perhaps less known, linked to our city. After the long crisis that followed the Florentine conquest, from the mid-sixteenth century Pisa began its rebirth as the second city of the Medici principality. The grand ducal family stayed for long periods in the city, the Pisan Studio reopened, the military monastic order of the Knights of St. Stephen was founded, which had its headquarters in the totally renovated square of the same name, and the cathedral, severely damaged by the fire of 1595, was restored by resorting to the best artists available. The population of the city, also through the arrival of many families from the countryside or from Florence itself such as the Galilei, began to increase, as did economic activities, reviving the same urban context. Within this framework the new painting developed linked mainly to two families the Lomi Gentileschi and the Riminaldi. Active mainly between Tuscany and Rome, with Orazio Gentileschi and his daughter Artemisia, who later moved to Naples, they projected as far as Paris and London. Orazio Gentileschi was master in Rome of his daughter Artemisia as well as of Orazio Riminaldi; together they constituted an artistic and cultural coterie originating in our city, in which Cassiano dal Pozzo participated as friend, protector and patron, and great foreign artists such as Simon Vouet could be added. This latest important acquisition is therefore also an opportunity to recall this affair of which Palazzo Blu preserves in our city the only testimony, at least until today.”

“The Pisa Foundation, since the beginning of its activity, has paid special attention, as far as the sector ’Art, activities and cultural heritage’ is concerned, to the recovery of works of art and testimonies of historical and cultural value concerning the city of Pisa and its territory, to be included in the collection displayed in Palazzo Blu,” says Stefano Del Corso, president of the Pisa Foundation. "In this scenario, during this year, we were able to acquire a work of great artistic value attributed to Orazio Riminaldi, an important Pisan painter of the Baroque period, a pupil of Aurelio Lomi and later of Orazio Gentileschi. It is the painting The Good Samaritan (1625 - 1630), which joins the Foundation’s collection for display in the Palazzo Blu museum, enhancing the Lomi Gentileschi gallery already enriched last year with the extraordinary acquisition of Christ and the Samaritan Woman at the Well by Artemisia Gentileschi. The painting has undergone careful restoration in recent months. The presentation of the work, on this day that also includes a seminar in the afternoon with the experts who conducted the restoration, is an opportunity to deepen the analysis of the painting, the artist and the context in which it was made. A publication, edited by Professor Stefano Renzoni, brings together expert analysis and contributions on the painting and offers a compelling account of the work and Pisa between the 16th and 17th centuries."

“The presentation of the work by the famous seventeenth-century painter from Pisa,” recalls Mayor Michele Conti, “comes immediately after the major exhibition in 2021 on Orazio Riminaldi at the Opera della Primaziale Pisana, which allowed not only enthusiasts, but also the general public and, in particular, our community, to discover or rediscover the author of the Pisa Cathedral dome. A prestigious acquisition, the one you present today, which follows that of one of Artemisia Gentileschi’s masterpieces; both the result of a far-sighted policy of the museum of Palazzo Blu, which, through its permanent collection, offers Pisanians an opportunity for cultural growth. Thanks, therefore, to Stefano Del Corso, president of the Pisa Foundation, to Cosimo Bracci Torsi, president of Palazzo Blu, and to all those who, in various capacities, have collaborated on this further, important acquisition for the Palazzo Blu Museum; thanks on behalf of the Administration and the city of Pisa.”

Pisa, Palazzo Blu acquires important work by Orazio Riminaldi for its collection

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