Alexandria capital of sculpture between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: here is the exhibition Alexandria Sculpted

Palazzo del Monferrato is hosting, from December 14, 2018 to May 5, 2019, the exhibition Alessandria scolpita, an exhibition curated by Fulvio Cervini that the Chamber of Commerce of Alessandria and the City of Alessandria have promoted on the occasion of the celebrations of the 850th anniversary of the founding of the city. The exhibition is being held at Palazzo del Monferrato and has been organized with the collaboration of the Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio for the Provinces of Alessandria, Asti and Cuneo, as well as the Dioceses of Alessandria, Acqui Terme, Asti, Casale Monferrato, Mondovì, Tortona and theArchdiocese of Genoa. It also benefits from the support of the Piedmont Region, the Council for Cultural Heritage of the Alessandria area, the two Foundations of the Cassa di Risparmio di Alessandria and Cassa di Risparmio di Asti, the Piedmont Region, the Province of Alessandria and Alexala. Sponsors of the exhibition are a number of private companies including the AMAG Group and Guala Dispensing of Alessandria.

The exhibition at Palazzo Monferrato aims to offer visitors the opportunity to learn about the figurative artistic heritage produced in the territory of Alessandria between the Gothic and Renaissance periods with the display of polychrome wooden statues, compared with painted panels and goldsmithing objects. Alexandria and its territory soon gained a respectable rank on the horizon of medieval municipalities in northern Italy and an architectural and monumental dimension that unfortunately, today, can be read with great difficulty as a result of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century demolitions and the general reshaping of the city that have completely distorted the medieval urban stratigraphy.

Alexandria, in fact, knows precisely between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries a cultural quality that exalts its role as territorial epicenter and hinge between different realities (especially Milan and Pavia on the one hand, and Genoa on the other), under the banner of a great figurative renewal that is manifested especially in the field of polychrome wood sculpture, still well represented in the area by many works of absolute level. The works on display aim to enhance this period, which coincides with the years of effective Sforza rule over the city, a period in which Alessandria became an important junction and a natural cultural corridor that welded Milan and Genoa, telling a forgotten or disguised history that projected Alessandria and its territory into an extra-regional dimension, rich in purposeful accents that were expressed especially through polychrome wooden sculpture, which even elaborated its own models in this phase, especially in the very vast field of crucifixes.In order to offer a broader overview of a period of remarkable artistic and cultural ferment in a city moving out of the Gothic to lean toward a new humanism, sculpture necessarily dialogues with paintings, goldsmithing and selected stone sculptures and inlays.

The exhibition is divided into three broad sections. The first is hinged around a spectacular sequence of sorrowful crucifixes; the other two around a Mourning over the Body of Christ group; the one from the Oratory of the Pieta in Castellazzo Bormida, which is also being restored to illustrate the vicissitudes these groups have undergone over time, and the conservation problems they pose; and the one from the Oratory of the Bianchi in Serravalle Scrivia, restored a few years ago with ministerial funds. Three different ideas of understanding the Passion of Christ, representative of three generations of artists.

The first section, titled “The Sense of Nature at the Frontier of Gothic,” is devoted to “linear naturalism,” an intense and elegant way of representing the passions, well expressed in the Ligurian-Piedmontese crucifixes of Bosco Marengo and Priero, the misunderstood Deposed Christ of Ozzano or again in the delightful Angels of the Sanctuary of La Verna in the province of Arezzo, which came out of a workshop in southern Piedmont: this language softened after the middle of the century thanks to the late Gothic culture of Lombardy, well represented by the crucifix of Pavia’s Baldino da Surso, on loan from Palazzo Madama in Turin, but coming from the abbey of Sezzadio (thus, a homecoming of sorts) and especially by the magnificent monstrance of Voghera, an exceptional loan granted by the Musei Civici del Castello in Milan. The exhibition opens, however, with the precious Vierge ouvrante from Pozzolo Formigaro, a Rhenish work from the late 14th century that documents the wide-ranging circulation of ideas: a Madonna and Child that opens to show the foreshadowing of Jesus’ sacrifice.

The second section, “A Structured Form in the Sunset of the Fifteenth Century,” highlights the shift toward works with a more structured form, which becomes apparent toward the end of the century: cornerstones of this path are the Lamentation of Castellazzo (to which an entire room is devoted), the little-known Dolenti of San Paolo in Asti, restored for the occasion, the crucifix of Masio, also freshly restored, and the superb Magdalene of Novi. The Alexandrian painter Giovanni Mazone, who worked mainly in Genoa, is the protagonist of this grandiose reconquest of form, well represented by the Crucifixion in the Pinacoteca di Savona and the panels in the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Alessandria. These decades are alive with openings toward Pavia, Milan and Cremona evoked by the splendid cross in Asti Cathedral signed by the Cremonese Giovanni Antonio Feta, and by theAdoration of the Magi in the Borgogna Museum in Vercelli, a work by Francesco Casellani from Vignale. Around 1500 the artist of reference in this area is Gandolfino da Roreto, whose remarkable triptych from Quargnento is presented after restoration financed by the Consulta per i Beni Culturali dell’Alessandrino, while his Madonna of Palazzo Madama in Turin also returns home, because it comes from the Cathedral of Alessandria.

The third section, “Toward a New Poetics of the Affections,” recounts the cultivation of a new ability to represent tensions and feelings linked to Leonardo’s culture, of which Giovanni Angelo del Maino with his workshop is the interpreter, in particular. A linguistic revolution that found fertile ground in the Alexandrian area, where an original language developed, strongly inspired by Maino’s workshop, which has its apex in the Lamentation of Serravalle and the powerful Ponzone Crucifix. Alongside a number of important works by this great artist and his workshop, such as the surviving figures of a Ponzone altarpiece or the Madonna del Parto in San Dalmazzo in Alexandria, there are eccentric works such as the Flemish Pietà in Merana, pictorial comparisons of decanted quality - such as Pietro Grammorseo ’s panel painting from San Francesco in Casale, recently acquired by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Alessandria-and the important match of the marble urn from San Dalmazzo in Quargnento. The extraordinary and generous loan of two inlaid doors from Savona Cathedral also makes it possible to represent Lombard perspective culture, in which the Castelnovese Ambrogio de Fornari and Giovan Michele Pantaleoni excelled.

The exhibition closes with a wooden relief once mounted on the altar machine designed by Giorgio Vasari for Santa Croce in Bosco Marengo, which ideally closes this period and opens up to new modes of expression: an object that no one in Alexandria had seen since the 19th century, when it took the paths of collecting to land in Palazzo Venezia in Rome, where it is still located today. Some historical cartographies will guide the visitor in the correct reading of the organization of the territory in the Sforza age.

The exhibition consists of forty-six works, for a total of sixty-four pieces (each compianto includes eight sculptures). The exhibition will then be complemented and enriched by the arrangement of a city itinerary, entitled "Alessandria Sculpted and Painted," which will allow visitors to see works preserved in the city that could not or should not be moved to the exhibition halls for reasons of space and safety, but which are fully within the exhibition’s horizon.

The city tour itinerary includes the Civic Museum of Palazzo Cuttica and the Art Rooms, Palazzo Ghilini, St. Peter’s Cathedral, and the churches of Santa Maria del Carmine, Santo Stefano and Santa Maria di Castello: the openings and guided tours will be carried out with the collaboration of ASM Costruire Insieme, the Cultural Heritage and Tourism Offices of the Diocese, and the volunteer association “Viviamo l’Arte.” Maria Luisa Caffarelli and Rino Tacchella have edited the texts of the printed guide to the city tour. Among the collateral initiatives to the exhibition are also planned two cycles of seminars, to be held during the first months of 2019 by the members of the Scientific Committee, to take care of the dissemination of the contents of the exhibition to an audience of enthusiasts and students. Special IT tools (a dedicated app, for example) are also being studied to facilitate the visit to the exhibition by visitors with disabilities, with particular reference to the blind.

Curator of the exhibition is Professor Fulvio Cervini, professor of Medieval Art History at theUniversity of Florence; the exhibition design is by architect Giancarlo Lombardi of Florence, assisted by Giorgio Annone(LineLab, Alessandria) for the graphics. The project is the result of the collaboration of a scientific committee composed of various specialists in the field: Marco Albertario, director of the Galleria dell’Accademia di Belle Arti Tadini(Lovere, Bergamo); Simone Baiocco, curator of Palazzo Madama(Turin); Massimiliano Caldera, official Soprintendenza Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio(SABAP, Turin); Fulvio Cervini, professor, University of Florence; Guido Gentile, former Archival Superintendent for Piedmont and Valle d’Aosta; Roberto Livraghi, director of Palazzo del Monferrato (Alessandria); Giulia Marocchi, SABAP official Alessandria, Asti, Cuneo; Valeria Moratti, SABAP Alessandria, Asti, Cuneo official; Vittorio Natale, art historian; Luciano Orsini, Director of the Cultural Heritage Office of the Diocese of Alessandria; Antonella Perin, architectural historian; Silvia Piretta, lecturer at the University of Turin; Andrea Rocco, director Palazzo Mazzetti (Asti); Carla Enrica Spantigati, former Superintendent Artistic Heritage of Piedmont (Turin); Rossana Vitiello, official MIBACT Regional Secretariat for Liguria. A catalog is planned to be produced, with printing by the SAGEP publishing house in Genoa.

Communication is by Luciana Rota, in collaboration with the Press Office of the Municipality of Alessandria. The exhibition secretariat is carried out by Simona Gallo and Luana Rossi, of the Alessandria Chamber of Commerce. Transportation of the works is carried out by the company Martina Service Srl of Susa. Insurance is entrusted to Great Lakes Insurance SE, Munich Re Group. Opening of the exhibition venue and assistance with visits are entrusted to theAzienda Speciale Multiservizi Costruire Insieme, and the Alessandria delegation of FAI(Fondo Italiano per l’Ambiente). Ticket price: full 5 €, reduced 3 €. For all information you can call +39 0131 313400, email info@palazzomonferrato.it or visit www.palazzomonferrato.it.

Pictured: Ambit by Giovanni Angelo del Maino, Lamentation over the Body of Christ (polychrome wood; Serravalle Scrivia, Oratorio dei Bianchi). Ph. Credit Enzo Bruno

Alexandria capital of sculpture between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: here is the exhibition Alexandria Sculpted

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