Brawl breaks out over Syracuse's Caravaggio, which Sgarbi wants to bring to Trentino

There is controversy in Sicily over the relocation of one of the masterpieces of the last Caravaggio, the Seppellimento di santa Lucia, which Michelangelo Merisi executed in 1608 for the church of Santa Lucia extra Moenia and is now instead located in the center of the city, in the church of Santa Lucia alla Badia, because its former location did not offer adequate conditions of preservation: it is a very fragile painting, which is in a far from good state, and is displayed out of context, leaning against the church’s altarpiece(we denounced its conservation and display conditions in an April 2019 article). In fact, the masterpiece is scheduled to leave next fall for Rovereto, Trentino, where an exhibition is planned to display it alongside Alberto Burri to highlight the similarities between the two great artists.

It will be a journey of more than a thousand kilometers that will bring the Seppellimento to the Mart, the large contemporary art museum of which Vittorio Sgarbi is president, who will also be curator of the exhibition, a project announced back in October, which was supposed to be held in the spring but slipped a few months due to the Covid-19 emergency. The “package” also includes the necessary and appropriate restoration of the work, which will be fully financed by the Province of Trento, to the tune of 350,000 euros, and the supply of a new display case made by the Goppion company. The transfer will have to obtain the endorsement of the Fondo Edifici di Culto (Fec) of the Ministry of the Interior, the body that owns the painting, which, having heard the positive opinions of the technicians on the possibility of allowing the work to travel, will give the green light to the transfer (at the end of June the painting will undergo the appropriate verifications, which will be held in Syracuse).

Caravaggio, Burial of St. Lucy (1608; oil on canvas, 408 x 300 cm; Syracuse, Santa Lucia alla Badia)

However, the idea of moving the Syracuse Caravaggio to Trentino has aroused strong discontent in the city, so much so that it led Mayor Francesco Italia and Culture Councillor Fabio Granata to sign a joint note expressing “opposition to the displacement of the very precious and fragile canvas” because “it represents one of the fundamental pieces of our artistic heritage and one of the most important attractions of our city for travelers and tourists.” Given the positive opinions of technicians on the work’s condition, the battle therefore shifts to the level of expediency: in other words, is it right to move a Caravaggio work from Syracuse to Rovereto for an exhibition such as the one being planned at the Mart?

The naysayers leverage the painting’s identity importance to Syracusans and its attractiveness for tourism, while those in favor beat on the lavish sum that the Province of Trento would provide for the work, the fact that the work is already not in its location (which would actually be the church of Santa Lucia extra Moenia: restoration would allow the return of the painting to its “natural” location), and on the fact that the work would be moved in mid-October, when tourist numbers in the Sicilian capital drop. What, then, is the proposed solution? Mayor Italia, yesterday morning, proposed that the work be protected “by finding appropriate forms of financing for the restoration, and not subjecting it to the risks and promises of others.” Italia also shuts down the argument of the drop in tourism in October, believing that at this stage, due to the coronavirus emergency, it would be useful to have the work even out of season to continue to channel tourists to the city. Art historian Paolo Giansiracusa, one of the animators of the “no” front, on the other hand, puts it on the level of pride: “why isn’t the state, at this stage, thinking about its display case and its restorations?” he said again yesterday on regional Tg3, adding that “we are not the last beggars on earth, we have our own resources and we certainly should not prostitute a painting to make it earn a display case or a restoration.”

Sgarbi, for his part, provocatively responded to Francesco Italia this morning by urging him to look for the necessary sources of funding. “They have been looking for them for 15 years,” Sgarbi said. “The former councillor of the region, which is me, found them through a friendly region, which does not pay a provocative type of displacement, but at the end of the summer season, already depressed in itself, when by far cultural tourism falls and in October will be almost zero, establishes to give maintenance, restoration and security, with 350 thousand euros, which I would like the mayor to find: I do not think he will find them.” Sgarbi then emphasizes another point, that of restoration: in fact, the Mart president said that, in Rovereto, the work will undergo the intervention in an environment where the public will be able to see it, something that he said would not have been possible in Syracuse, or at least not in a laboratory capable of avoiding concealing the Burial from the eyes of the public. Will this be enough to convince the city to send the painting away?

Brawl breaks out over Syracuse's Caravaggio, which Sgarbi wants to bring to Trentino

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