Cola dell'Amatrice between Pinturicchio and Raphael on display in Ascoli Piceno

A major exhibition on one of the major protagonists of the Renaissance in central Italy, Nicola Filotesio better known as Cola dell’Amatrice (Amatrice, 1480 - Ascoli Piceno, 1547): this is the one scheduled at the Civic Museums of Ascoli Piceno from March 17 to July 15, 2018. Entitled Cola dell’Amatrice between Pinturicchio and Raphael, it falls twenty-seven years after the last monographic exhibition on the Latium artist (held in 1991) and is also shaped as a kind of tribute to the town of Amatrice, which was hard hit by the 2016 earthquake in central Italy and of which Cola was a native. “The artist’s activity,” the presentation reads, in fact, “has been expressed throughout the vast Apennine area affected by the recent seismic events: Amatrice, L’Aquila, Ascoli Piceno, Force, and Città di Castello represent the peaks of a territory severely scarred by the recent seismic events. The Ascoli Piceno exhibition intends to reaffirm the identity value of these works of art for a community that is in danger of seeing the historical, social and cultural values on which its reality was based dispersed, offering it the chance to initiate a moral redemption that will help it rise again.”

The Ascolan exhibition intends to focus mainly on the artist’s formative years, along an itinerary that winds between Farfa, Subiaco and Ascoli Piceno: the artist arrived in the Marche city in 1509 to complete the triptych for the church of San Bartolomeo in Piagge, begun by Paolo da Imola.

Cola dell’Amatrice then moved to Rome in 1513: the exhibition also features never-before-seen comparisons between the works of the artists active in the building site of the Bishop’s Palace in Ostia, promoted by Cardinal Raffaele Riario. The artist, profoundly influenced by Pinturicchio and Raphael (in fact, he visited the Vatican Rooms: sketches from the celebrated School of Athens can be found in his notebooks, and these sheets, taken from the so-called Taccuino di Fermo, will be on public display for the first time), updated his art, and the result was the 1514 altarpiece for the church of San Vittore in Ascoli Piceno, created on his return from Rome. Ascoli then became home to the artist, who effectively monopolized all artistic production in the Piceno city in the following years, creating works for private and public patrons. Still on display are works restored for the occasion (some of which had been damaged by the earthquake) and works that allow a comparison with sculpture: polychrome terracotta works of the time will in fact be placed in dialogue with Cola’s paintings.

The exhibition, curated by Stefano Papetti and Luca Pezzuto, hosts about sixty works, but expands to other places in the city linked to Cola dell’Amatrice, such as the monumental complex of San Francesco, where there will be a section dedicated to graphic art, and the refectory of the Convento dell’Annunziata, home of the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Camerino, where Cola’s fresco depicting the Ascent to Calvary can be admired.

Opening hours: Tuesday through Sunday and Mondays on holidays and pre-holidays, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Pinacoteca Civica and 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Cola dell’Amatrice Hall. Tickets: full 10 euros, reduced 6 euros (for groups, over 65, disabled with accompanying person, FAI, TCI, FMR, Coop members), reduced exhibition with Marche Region coupon 8 euros. Combined ticket exhibition+Pinacoteca Civica: full price 15 euros, reduced 11 euros. The catalog is published by Silvana Editoriale. Info on the website of the Civic Museums of Ascoli Piceno.

Pictured: Cola dell’Amatrice, Institution of the Eucharist (1519; panel, 280 x 315 cm; Ascoli Piceno, Pinacoteca Civica)

Cola dell'Amatrice between Pinturicchio and Raphael on display in Ascoli Piceno

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