Uffizi Lands, an exhibition in Poppi on motherhood, principle of the world and essence of love

The Conti Guidi fortress in Poppi will host the exhibition In the Sign of Life from July 8 to November 1, 2022. Women and Madonnas at the Time of Expectation. Indeed, the second exhibition stage of Terre degli Uffizi, a project curated by the Uffizi Galleries together with Fondazione CR Firenze within their respective programs Uffizi Diffusi and Piccoli Grandi Musei, is dedicated to motherhood, understood as the principle of the world and the essence of love, in Poppi.

After the success of last year’s exhibition dedicated to Dante(Nel segno di Dante. Il Casentino nella Commedia), the rooms of the fortress host the new exhibition that revolves around the painting depicting the Hermit Torello da Poppi in the act of blessing a woman in an advanced state of pregnancy, dating back to the late 18th century. It is a unique iconography in Tuscan painting. Restored on this very occasion, also with the contribution of the Fondazione CR Firenze, the large oil on canvas commissioned for the church of Santa Trinita in Florence, is attributed to Florentine painter Santi Pacini and is dated to the late 1770s, when the artist was busy completing frescoes in the vault and choir of the church of Camaldoli.

Torello, a hermit from Avellaneto near Poppi, has been known since the thirteenth century, the century in which he lived, as the protector of parturients and fetuses during the time of expectation; enhancing the depiction of this moment of life as a theological metaphor for humanity’s path to salvation, works on loan from the Uffizi Galleries are on display, dedicated to the subjects of theAnnunciation of Mary and the Nativity of Christ. The most significant is theAllegory of the Incarnation and Sibyls, a very fine painting that features the nomen sacrum (IHS), seal of the Society of Jesus, on the Virgin’s womb. Also on display is TheAnnunciation, previously attributed to Bronzino and now ascribed to his Florentine contemporary Giovanni Bizzelli, and The Vow Against Nature, a grandiose and provocative sculpture by the 19th-century Sicilian artist Salvatore Grita: a pregnant woman in a monk’s habit slumped against a peeling wall stands for all those girl mothers and female cadets who, forcibly and against nature, were forced to take vows.

“The many glories of Casentino include Blessed Torello, the starting point for this exhibition dedicated to motherhood, its mystery, and its centrality,” said Uffizi Galleries director Eike Schmidt. “The event therefore has both local and global value, because it touches on topics that involve not only the people of Casentino, but all of humanity. At a time when the debate on freedom of choice in procreation is reigniting in the world, while at the same time advanced societies, and Italy especially, are in a great crisis of denatality, the works on display offer universal food for thought, through the image of woman as a sublime bearer of life, a loving and aware mother, but also as a victim of prejudice.”

“This exhibition,” says Fondazione CR Firenze President Luigi Salvadori, “marks the happy return to Castello di Poppi for Terre degli Uffizi. In fact, the project began in this fascinating place, just a year ago, with a tribute to Dante Alighieri, an exile from Florence, in the land that first welcomed him. Now the protagonist is a painting by Sante Pacini with a very rare iconography exhibited together with a nucleus of works depicting the iconographic subject of Madonnas in childbirth, widespread until the entire 15th century especially in the Tuscan context. The exhibitions we have already inaugurated confirm the enjoyment of the project that has been able to intercept the pleasure and desire of a slow tourism that wants to immerse itself in that constellation of small towns where the work of man is an inextricable ingredient from the natural environment. The proposals that are part of the new edition also offer the opportunity to get to know and admire masterpieces of great beauty that, in many cases, are relocated to the places for which they were born.”

Finally, Poppi Mayor Carlo Toni concluded, "The cultural interchange with the Uffizi Galleries that began in 2018 with the exhibition of the Tavola Doria, which gave rise to the Uffizi diffuse exhibition at the Conti Guidi castle in Poppi entitled, on that occasion, In the Sign of Leonardo, continues, and I hope with as much success. Subsequently in 2021 this initiative was further embellished thanks to the collaboration and support of the Fondazione CR Firenze with the inclusion within the promotional project Terre degli Uffizi of the exhibition Nel segno di Dante (In the Sign of Dante), again at the castle on the occasion of the celebrations of the seven hundredth anniversary of the death of the Supreme Poet. This year, again in valuable synergy with the Uffizi and Foundation, we are proposing the exhibition entitled In the Sign of Life, Women and Madonnas in the Time of Waiting. The castle will come alive with works that evoke motherhood by celebrating Life as the fruit born from Love. A message of hope in difficult times, a look to the future to affirm more and more the sacred universal value of Peace that is built in respect for Life, laboriously, with sacrifice and determination, but only in this way if we want and believe in a better world."

Uffizi Lands, an exhibition in Poppi on motherhood, principle of the world and essence of love

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