Marche celebrates 500 years since the birth of Pope Sixtus V with an exhibition

Until June 30, 2022 Palazzo Paradisi in Montalto delle Marche (Ascoli Piceno) is hosting the exhibition Sixtus V and Pericle Fazzini. Glory and Memory, in celebration of the fifth centenary of the birth of Pope Sixtus V. The brainchild of Vittorio Sgarbi and Daniela Tisi, the exhibition is promoted by the Marche Region and the Municipality of Montalto delle Marche, in collaboration with the Pericle Fazzini Foundation and the Municipality of Grottammare and under the patronage of the Pontifical Council for Culture and the Ministry of Culture.

The exhibition aims to tell the story of two figures, namely a visionary pope and one of the greatest Italian sculptors of the 20th century, who are apparently distant from each other but have several aspects in common. In fact, they were both born in Grottammare, the former in 1521 and the latter in 1913, both were active in Rome without ever abandoning their roots, and both proved to be very attached to the village of Montalto delle Marche, Sixtus V’s town of origin and for which Fazzini created one of his last sculptures dedicated to the pontiff.

The exhibition ideally opens with the Monument to Sixtus V designed by Pericle Fazzini for the town of Montalto delle Marche between 1984 and 1985, which can still be seen in the village. “The idea of connecting Sixtus V to Pericle Fazzini is linked to an occasion that is also celebratory,” explains Vittorio Sgarbi, “namely the monument dedicated to Sixtus V, thelast work from the Marche region created by Fazzini, of aerial invention, conceived by an artist who wanted to represent the soul of the Pope rather than his work, and therefore belongs to a moment and an era, we are talking about 1986, when Fazzini’s great season was at its peak. Slowly then, this personality, which had been so emergent also by being linked to important figures in twentieth-century art and poetry such as Ungaretti, to whom perhaps we owe the most significant portrait of the poet, seems to be forgotten.”

This is the starting point for the title of the exhibition, which aims to remember and celebrate the sculptor Pericle Fazzini and the illustrious pontiff Sixtus V. On display are over fifty works by Fazzini including bronze and wood sculptures, studies, sketches, drawings, and engravings, some of which will be exhibited in rotation over the months.

Each work recounts and represents the dualism between spirit and matter that has accompanied the sculptor’s entire output, beginning with the Boy with Seagulls (1940- 1946), still installed in Grottammare’s seaside promenade, featured in the exhibition with a wooden sketch and preparatory drawings, and again the female figures, the 1968 Waves series, and those works imbued with “Franciscan sensibility Franciscan” that recount the life of the saint, up to the famous Resurrection of the Nervi Hall, in the Vatican, commissioned by Pope Paul VI at the close of the Second Vatican Council and inaugurated in 1977, of which an etching and preparatory studies are on display. Not only sculptures, but also graphics are on display: pastels from the 1970s and 1980s, including I miei zoccoli sulla spiaggia, from 1982, and an unpublished study on paper and a bronze sketch related to the Monument to Sixtus V.

One section is more closely related to Sixtus V and exhibits part of the collections of the City of Sixtus V Museum Pole and the Bishop’s Sistine Museum of Montalto Marche, which, due to the damage of the 2016-17 earthquake, had no longer been on public display, and the Grisostomi Collection. Starting with the latter, it is possible to admire coins, heads, plates, shields, baiocchi and medals minted by the mint that Sixtus V established in Montalto during his pontificate. Then there is the well-known portrait of Pope Sixtus V, the Sistine medallions, the Pope’s Planet and the sumptuous Magistrate’s robes, perfectly preserved, and the Reliquary of Sixtus V donated by the Pontiff to Montalto, a masterpiece of goldsmithing with the figures made in enamel en ronde bosse, probably the work of a Parisian goldsmith active for the royal house in the late 14th and early 15th centuries.

In addition, another section of the exhibition is set up at the Museum of the Battle Tower in Grottammare, where three series of colored mixed media drawings on paper on the theme of the seven deadly sins, made by the artist in the 1960s, are on display.

For more info: sisto500.it

Hours: Jan. 2 to 6, 2022 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 4 to 7 p.m.

Jan. 1, 2022 and Jan. 7 to 9, 2022 from 4 to 7 p.m.

February and March 2022, Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.

April 2022, Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.

April 18 to 25, 2022 from 4 to 7 p.m.

May 2022, Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.

June 2022, Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.

June 13 to 30, 2022 from 4 to 7 p.m.

Special openings by reservation at: 0736 - 828015 (Municipality of Montalto delle Marche)

Tickets: Full 10 euros, reduced 8 euros for children 6 to 18 years old, residents, groups and school groups. Free for 0 to 6 years old, persons with disabilities and accompanying persons, law enforcement and ICOM members).

Image: Reliquary of Montalto (gold, silver, enamels en ronde bosse, gems, pearls, cameo; 66.5 x 43 x 23 cm; Montalto delle Marche, Museo Sistino Vescovile).

Marche celebrates 500 years since the birth of Pope Sixtus V with an exhibition

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