Caravaggio from MART returns to Syracuse. Sgarbi: now it's in danger. But it will return to Trentino

It is a restart with a few barbs that of Caravaggio’s Seppellimento di santa Lucia, the work preserved in Syracuse that has been on display at the Mart in Rovereto since the beginning of October, where it arrived after a summer of fierce controversy, and with many in Sicily who tried to the last to prevent the work from leaving. Now, as expected, the work (which is owned by the Fec, Fondo edifici di culto del ministero dell’Interno) is returning to Syracuse, and Sgarbi, however, wants to get some of the stones off his shoe.

“The last jerks are appearing on the ladder,” said Vittorio Sgarbi, president of the Mart and curator of the exhibition. “Instead of thanking those who repaired the Caravaggio painting and with great punctuality brought it back to the Borgata church, they continue to insult, helpless and imbecile, trying to go on that chronicle that ignores them. I felt only pity and wanted to give them, forgers and liars, one last slap in the face. In the night, in the rain, I accompanied the painting of the Burial of Saint Lucy in the macabre ritual of its transportation. I put it on a truck and watched it leave. I hope never again to hear the shrill voice of those who did nothing for Caravaggio. The saint in Rovereto was just fine. Now she is in danger.”

Sgarbi, however, also anticipated a possible return of the work to Trentino, with some openly provocative statements: “This is not a farewell, it is a goodbye: the painting is rightly leaving to go to the festival, then no longer having any good reason to stay in Syracuse surrounded by threatening gazes, it will hope to return to more pleasant places, and so I think that in January we will have it back here in Rovereto. A comeback then. In the meantime we send him to celebrate the saints, St. Lucy, and then also Christmas, all forbidden holidays: so he is a picture leaving for forbidden destinations. Instead, he found his paradise here. In Syracuse she experienced long years of waiting, and she finally found her resurrection in Trentino. Here Saint Lucia is resurrected.”

In the photo, Sgarbi in front of Caravaggio’s work at the Mart.

Caravaggio from MART returns to Syracuse. Sgarbi: now it's in danger. But it will return to Trentino

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