COVER  NOTES

As these notes are being written, there are only a few days left until the opening of the exhibition “Gentile da Fabriano and the other Renaissance”, which is to be inaugurated at the ‘Spedale di Santa Maria del Buon Gesù’ in Fabriano on the 20th April in the presence of the President of Italy, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi. It will be possible for a wider public to appreciate Gentile and at last, after roughly 600 years, for the people of his home town to admire his work, people who have had few occasions and even less time to get to know their most illustrious citizen and the works which have rendered him famous in the most important cities throughout Italy.

Thanks to this extraordinary cultural event and this unrepeatable opportunity, justice may at last be done to the many clichés which have marked the artistic history and the critical appraisals of Gentile da Fabriano over the centuries, especially more recently. Gentile da Fabriano has long been identified with an elegant but decadent interpretation of the aesthetic ideals which were flowering in the late Medieval period. With an intentionally critical viewpoint the title of the exhibition is drawn from another ‘renaissance’ which gives an idea of the perspective from which the curators, headed by Keith  Christiansen and Andrea De Marchi, want to observe and reflect on the works and the style of Gentile da Fabriano in the context of the visual arts in the early 1400s. One may suppose, from works already published by these two scholars and  from information disclosed in advance by the exhibition organizers, that particular emphasis will be placed on the characteristics of experimenter that Gentile never failed to express in his choice of materials and techniques, and his lenticular investigation of the visible world, with which he seems to want to take hold of the ‘skin’ of things in order to give back through the painting the translation of a direct, sensorial and emotional contact. The wonderful capacities for telling the visual story that the painter from Fabriano must have done with surprising and spectacular effects will certainly be exalted, especially in the large-scale cycles of frescoes now almost entirely lost. These latter are referred to by the Ligurian humanist Bartolomeo Facio, who wrote about a scene depicting a storm at sea that was so realistic it instilled a sense of terror in the observer. There will also be a direct reference to the effect of light which Gentile used to brush both natural spaces and those created by man. Attention will also be drawn to Gentile’s choice not to associate space with mathematics, as in the perspective constructions of the Brunelleschi style, but rather to blend it so well with the light as to tie in with the colour of the atmosphere of successive Venetian painters.

Who knows what else this exhibition holds in store for art lovers, with its 120 works, 37 of which are by Gentile. The ‘Adoration of the Magi’ from the Uffizi will not be there as it is impossible to transport it owing to the extreme delicacy of the painting and the technical complexity of the woodwork. But Gentile’s most famous painting will be represented by the panel of the altar-step kept in the Louvre that portrays the ‘Presentation at the Temple’, which in the catalogue De Marchi identifies with the ‘Purification of the Virgin’.

The town of Fabriano has strengthened its link with the Strozzi altar- piece, thanks to the recent restoration of this work funded by ‘Faber’, a company which has also promoted a valuable publication with an introduction by Christiansen and the documentation of the entire intervention directed by Alessandro Cecchi and carried out by Nicola Ann MacGregor and Sandra Freschi. The same team and the same sponsor are also responsible for the restoration of the Quaratesi altar-piece, the results of which may be seen by visitors to the exhibition. Alongside are the results of the restoration of the so-called “dell’Intercessione” altar-piece sponsored by ‘Indesit’, flagship company of the Merloni family.

Even in this fervour of patronage, the industrialists of Fabriano seem to want to reap the ideal heritage of the Strozzi altar-piece, undoubtedly aware that the culture, art and the sense of beauty that have historically always been innate in it can but enrich the quality of life and favour the harmonious growth of social relations and economic enterprise.
Francesco Maria Orsolini
 

Gentile da Fabriano.
Adorazione dei Magi, 1423, Firenze, Galleria degli Uffizi