Taddeo di Bartolo tablets bought by MiBACT arrive in Gubbio

Scheduled for Sunday, March 18, at 5 p.m. at the Ducal Palace in Gubbio is the permanent exhibition of the eight tablets by Taddeo di Bartolo (Siena, c. 1362 - 1422) purchased by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage at the end of 2017: the paintings were auctioned by the Pandolfini auction house on Sept. 28, 2017, and MiBACT, recognizing their exceptional art-historical interest and documentary value for reconstructing the late Gothic season in Gubbio, exercised its right of first refusal and succeeded in winning them.

The eight tablets depict St. Peter the Martyr, Blessed Ambrose Sansedoni, a holy bishop, St. Gregory the Great, St. Luke, St. Matthew, St. Stephen and St. Thomas Aquinas. They were part of an altarpiece, dating from 1418, probably placed on the high altar of the church of San Domenico, which was removed perhaps around 1765. The other parts of the polyptych are now divided among several American museums: the Madonna and Child is at the Fogg Art Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts; the St. John the Baptist and St. James are at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Arts; and the holy bishop and St. Catherine of Alexandria are at the New Orleans Museum of Art.

“The acquisition,” says Paola Mercurelli Salari, director of the Palazzo Ducale in Gubbio, “compensates Gubbio for what has been taken from it over time to enrich Italian and foreign museums and private collections; a sad fate that the city has shared with the Palazzo Ducale, stripped beginning in 1631, with the passage first to the Florentine Medici family and then into private hands, of almost all of its furnishings, including the celebrated Studiolo, now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York.” Sunday’s presentation will take place in the presence of Undersecretary Ilaria Borletti Buitoni, Director General Archaeology Fine Arts and Landscape Caterina Bon Valsassina, art historian Gail E. Solberg (the first to propose the reconstruction of Taddeo di Bartolo’s polyptych) and Gubbio Mayor Filippo Mario Stirati. Introducing the meeting will be the director of the Polo Museale, Marco Pierini, while Paola Mercurelli Salari herself will describe the work.

Pictured: technicians show the Taddeo di Bartolo panels that have arrived in Gubbio. Photo by the Polo Museale dell’Umbria.

Taddeo di Bartolo tablets bought by MiBACT arrive in Gubbio

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