Milan, the relationship between man and time in a major exhibition at Poldi Pezzoli

The Poldi Pezzoli Museum presents The Shape of Time: an exhibition dedicated to man’s relationship with time, from antiquity to the threshold of the modern age, which relates the iconography of it to the technological advancement in its measurement, through the observational angles of science, literature and art.

The exhibition, curated by Lavinia Galli, curator of the Poldi Pezzoli, with installation design by Migliore+Servetto Architects, presents some 30 works, including clocks, sculptures, codices and paintings (among the authors: Tiziano Vecellio, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Andrea Previtali, Bernardino Mei, and Giovan Battista Gaulli known as Baciccio); the centerpiece of the exhibition is a series of precious Italian nocturnal clocks from the 17th century, invented by the Campani brothers for Pope Alexander VII Chigi, with dials painted with allegories of the time by famous Baroque artists.

The exhibition is divided into three sections: The Measure of Time and Space, The Images of Time, and Nottetempo. The first section is devoted to the milestones of the technological evolution of time-measuring instruments, through the transition from the sundial to the mechanical weighted, spring-loaded and pendulum clock, mounted in Italy precisely on nocturnals. On display are a very rare (practically the only) original monastic alarm clock dating from the 15th century, theanthenate of the first weight clocks and a replica of Giovanni Dondi’sAstrario, the most complicated astronomical machine devised in medieval Europe. Next to the spring and pendulum clocks, the other instruments of the scientific revolution are then presented: the microscope and the telescope, with specimens signed by Giuseppe Campani (Castel San Felice, 1635 Rome, 1715). Giuseppe Campani, the lideator of nocturnes, is best known as the most renowned maker of telescopic and microscopic lenses of his time. Popes, scientific academies and crowned heads of Europe vied for his lenses of exceptional quality. It is thus highlighted how the development of the telescope and new scientific instrumentation enabled the discovery of the real quality of theUniverse, quite different from the perfect Aristotelian stillness. In fact, the telescope was a philosophical tool that made it possible to question the authority of the ancients and the Bible itself.

The exhibition continues with the second section devoted to the personification of Time. The lyconography of time is in fact one of the richest, most changeable and interesting that the Western world has ever elaborated, and this is due to the close interweaving that this theme weaves with literature and philosophy, which have always wondered about the essence of time. A rare Roman relief is displayed with Kairos/Occasio, the winged man who personifies the fleeting lattimo in which fortunes change. The fleeting lattimo is countered by the medieval vision of circular and cyclical time, introduced by astronomical and astrological calendars of the dore books. But it is Petrarch who is the real witness: it is he who leaves us the most complete meditation on medieval man’s time in the Triumphs, where Time is the destroyer of fame and of all things. Petrarch’s Trionfi inspired a series of manuscripts and chests in the following century. The section will be an opportunity to exhibit two Triumphs of Time both made in Florence in the second half of the 15th century in a codex by Francesco del Chierico and in an espalier by Jacopo del Sellaio, respectively. The latter panel was restored for the occasion. It was in Venice around 1500 that the rediscovery of classical Greek and Latin texts led literati and artists to devise new iconographies, among which the Three Ages of Man stands out: youth, maturity and old age. The cultured Venetian patronage probably owes the request, first to Giorgione and then to Titian, for room paintings related to the theoretical reflection on the passage of time, which, starting with the memento mori, exemplified in the exhibition by Andrea Previtali’s painting, blossoms into modern secular iconographies devised by these great artists. Old age, feared because it is a symbol of physical decay, also becomes in some cases a source of consolation and a bearer of wisdom. On display in this section will be two works by Andrea Previtali, a pupil of Bellini, and, above all, Titian’s highly original Allegory of Time and Prudence, from the National Gallery in London.

In the Baroque era, thanks to the interest in allegories, new and fruitful modern iconographies multiplied, increasingly linking Father Time to positive qualities such as wisdom and consolation. It was especially Bernini, Domenichino and Nicola Poussin who developed them for Roman Catholic patrons. Variants of the Truth revealed by time (Veritas Filia Temporis), a theme also frequently treated in coeval literature and music, multiply among them. To evoke this climate, the third section displays a large painting by the Sienese Bernardino Mei and a series of twelve seventeenth-century nocturnal clocks, made in Rome and other Italian states, which feature dials painted with allegories of Time. The story of the nocturnes is intimately linked to Pope Alexander VII Chigi (1599-1667), who was known for his efforts in beautifying the city, which he adorned with magnificent monuments (three including the colonnade of St. Peter’s) and patronage, evoked in the exhibition by a bust by Bernini. Sources narrate that Fabio Chigi, who had just ascended to the papal throne in 1655 was tormented by insomnia and thus stimulated the search for a new type of silent clock. The solution was found in 1658 by Pietro Tommaso (1630-1705) and Matteo Campani (1620 1678), papal watchmakers. The two brothers, together with the younger Giuseppe, succeeded in devising a new type of clock, the nocturnal, equipped with a silent escapement and a dial visible in the dark. The hours were not indicated by hands but by means of an openwork disk that rotated behind a front aperture, while an oil lamp was housed in the case. The hour had to be visible from the bed, so it needed considerable size, so the clock also took on the function of a domestic altar. To the technological innovation of the nocturnes corresponded an unparalleled decorative magnificence. Their cases were made by the most famous cabinetmakers active in Rome and often decorated with bronzes and semi-precious stones, while the dials were decorated with time-related iconographies entrusted by patrons to their favorite painters.

The demand for night watches gradually spread outside Rome, and soon watchmakers throughout the peninsula began to produce them. Although the silence was almost inimitable and remained a secret,3 the painted-dial type spread and was imitated even beyond the Alps until the 1730s. On display alongside five Campani specimens are Genoese, Florentine and Bolognese nocturnes. Five specimens, some totally unseen, are presented to the public for the first time. Of many it has been possible to reconstruct with certainty the commission: from Flavio Chigi, the cardinal nephew of Alexander VII, to Leopold de Medici. The selection includes instruments with signed and dated dials, such as lesemplares by Filippo Lauri and Andrea Scacciati, or that of Francesco Trevisani. Finally, there are many novelties attributed to artists such as the Romans Giacinto Giminiani, Ciro Ferri or Clemente Onofri, the Genoese Domenico Piola and Badaracco. A second invention of Giuseppe Campani was the nocturnal projection clock on the wall: the last room of the exhibition is therefore dedicated to the exhibition of projection clocks and will be equipped with a dimerization device that, by alternating dark and light, will allow the night projection to be visualized. The real star of the section is a unicum, a full-round sculpture more than three feet tall in gilded wood depicting Chronos and currently attributed to Giuseppe Campani and Johannes-Jakobus Reyff holding a night clock hidden in a celestial globe that projects constellation patterns on the ceiling. Also on display is Wendelinus Hessler’s extremely rare projection night clock, made in Rome and owned by the Poldi Pezzoli Museum.

Various collateral educational activities will also be organized throughout the duration of the exhibition: guided tours with different cuts by appointment, educational itineraries and workshops for children and families, and a series of lectures on the themes of the exhibition entrusted to specialists in the topics addressed. For the calendar of events, please consult the Museum’s website. Available to visitors are audioguides in Italian and English. The audio guides in English were recorded by Giulia Valentina, influencer and content creator, who kindly lent her voice to tell the public about some of the most significant works in the exhibition. Catalog published by SKIRA with essays by Francesco Ceretti, Claudia Cieri Via, Umberto Eco, Lavinia Galli, Alberto Lualdi, Alvar Gonzáles Palacios, Emilio Russo and Cristiano Zanetti.

The Shape of Time is open until September 27.

For all information you can visit the official website of the Poldi Pezzoli Museum.

Image: room of the exhibition. Photo by Leo Torri

Milan, the relationship between man and time in a major exhibition at Poldi Pezzoli

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