Uffizi Diffusi. the Polyptych of the Blessed Humility by Pietro Lorenzetti returns to Faenza on view

From Florence to Faenza: a masterpiece of the Uffizi Galleries, the great Polyptych with the Stories of St. Humility by painter Pietro Lorenzetti (Siena, 1280 - 1348), which has just re-emerged from a complex restoration that lasted more than four years, is being exhibited to the public for the first time in the Romagnola city of which Umiltà is the patron saint. Following the complex restoration work to which it was subjected by the Opificio delle Pietre Dure and Studio Scarpelli of Florence, the work will be the protagonist of the exhibition Per Immagini e Colori. The Story of Santa Umiltà da Faenza in the Uffizi’s Medieval Masterpiece welcomed in the Medieval and Renaissance Room of the Pinacoteca Comunale scheduled from Oct. 31, 2023 until March 3, 2024.Faenza thus becomes part of the Uffizi Diffusi, a grand plan to spread art throughout the territory, launched two years ago by the famous Florentine museum.

The polyptych on display in the Pinacoteca consists of 22 elements, including cusps, predella and 11 stories that recount the most salient moments in the existence of Santa Umiltà da Faenza. Umility (born about 1226 and died in 1310) was an extraordinary woman: in contrast to the patterns of the female condition of the time, she embraced the religious life with great energy and spirit of initiative, first founding a monastery in Faenza and then, at the age of 55 - a venerable age for those times - crossing the Apennines with some sisters and moving to Florence to start the monastery of St. John the Evangelist, known as “of the women of Faenza.” The itinerary of the saint, venerated on both sides of the mountain, is now fulfilled in reverse with the present exhibition, sealing the friendship that has linked the city of Romagna to Florence over the centuries, and which even during the glorious years of the Faenza Renaissance saw its lords, the Manfredi, linked to the Medici of Florence.

The exhibition, financed entirely thanks to generous contributions from private individuals, offers an opportunity to admire, for the first time, the results of the work’s restoration, just completed after four years of work. Carried out at the Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence following an extensive investigation and documentation campaign, the intervention, completed by studio Stefano Scarpelli, led to the restoration of the wooden support and the cleaning of the pictorial surface, removing stratified dirt, old degraded retouches and varnishes that have become opaque over time. The investigation campaign, microscopic observation and the patient work of the restorers made it possible to clarify important aspects for the knowledge of the work: in particular, the correct sequence of the scenes, the existence of a frame covered with silver leaf, and the identification of the pigments used for the colors. Traditional ones of the time were used for the Polyptych, with a limited palette that suggests an effect of deliberate poverty, if one excludes the use of precious materials in some details, such as the blue of lapis lazuli in the gems that adorn the crosses in the scene of the Translation of the relics of the blessed. Thanks to the restoration, therefore, it is now possible to admire again Pietro Lorenzetti’s masterpiece in its original sharpness and chromaticism, and to read the account of Humility’s life in the original order with which it was conceived.

The exhibition is made possible thanks to the contribution of ARTE Generali, Arterìa, Fondazione Prada and: Prince Giovanni Alliata di Montereale; Altomani and Sons; Associazione Antiquari d’Italia; Lella and Roberto Bartoli; Biennale Internazionale dell’Antiquariato di Firenze; Sabrina Andreucci; Galleria Benappi, Turin; Berengo Studio - Murano; Katia Caradonna; Roberto Casamonti, Tornabuoni Arte; Cristian Contini and Fulvio Granocchia; Mario Cristiani; Rita De Donato; Exclusive Connection; Enrico Frascione; Fabrizio Guidi Bruscoli; Fondazione Enzo Hruby; Assia Karaguiozova; Leo France Srl; Massimo Listri; Sascha Mehringer; Lucia Meoni and Antonio Pettena; Federica Olivares; Sir Nicholas Penny and Lady Mary Crettier; Fondazione Giovanni Pratesi; Fondazione Stefano Ricci Onlus; Siân Walters - Art History in Focus; Helidon Xixha.

Statements

“It is with great emotion that we see Pietro Lorenzetti’s polyptych with the Stories of Saint Humility shining today in the Pinacoteca,” says Faenza Mayor Massimo Isola. “And the emotion is not only the aesthetic one feels in front of a marvelous work, but it has an exquisitely Faentine character: all the paintings in the upper register, in fact, depict stories related to our city, imagined within its medieval walls. One of them even shows us this marvelous woman on her way to Florence fording the Lamone, the river that brings life to Faenza and its territory but which even in very recent times has been the cause of devastation. The exhibition is therefore cause for reflection for all of us in Faenza, but not only: it is a cue to think about Faenza with pride, because the paintings of the Uffizi polyptych invite us to consider the very important role of our city in Italian history, art and culture.”

“The restoration of this monumental and very famous polyptych,” says Uffizi director Eike Schmidt, “was extremely complex, and now, after four years of work conducted by the Opificio delle Pietre Dure and the Scarpelli studio in Florence, we are presenting it for the first time in Faenza. It is therefore an ”exhibition within an exhibition“ that we have inaugurated today: the work itself (or rather the works, since they are many paintings) displayed in the Pinacoteca inside a casket that exalts it and makes it shine, and the restoration, which is being presented for the first time. No one had yet been able to see the Polyptych of Blessed Humility in this light, with its colors still intact, and the thousands of details that describe in a magical tale the life of Humility, a medieval heroine.”

Uffizi Diffusi. the Polyptych of the Blessed Humility by Pietro Lorenzetti returns to Faenza on view

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