FLORENCE - A work from the Uffizi, which survived the raids of the Nazi army and the destruction of the Second World War, will be exhibited at the Museum of Sacred Art of San Piero in Mercato in Montespertoli (Florence), as part of the Terre degli Uffizi project.
It is a predella of a fifteenth-century Florentine workshop where Stories of San Pier Martire are depicted and, in the central panel, Christ in piety.
The exhibition, in which the panel connects with the contemporary works already present in the museum and from the territory, will be open to the public from May 14 to January 8, 2023. During the Second World War, the Uffizi recalls, the predella was hospitalized in the Castle of Montegufoni, in Val di Pesa.
The manor, when the dangers of Allied air raids forced the Florentine artistic heritage to be saved, welcomed among the many works arriving from the Uffizi also masterpieces such as Giotto's Majesty and Botticelli's paintings.
The director of the Uffizi Galleries Eike Schmidt spoke of "a predella without the altarpiece to which it was connected, of a still mysterious fifteenth-century Florentine workshop.
Temporarily placing this work in the museum of Montespertoli subjects it to the scrutiny of scholars and onlookers in the hope that someone will solve the many questions that the work still leaves open.
This is an unusual operation, because it does not propose solutions from above but, on the contrary, intends to stimulate the curiosity and participation of visitors.
The 'Terre degli Uffizi' thus also becomes an occasion for scientific debate ". General Roberto Riccardi, commander of the Carabinieri for the protection of cultural heritage, explained that" right after the disasters of the Second World War, one of the fathers of the Italian Constitution, Piero Calamandrei, declared that every work of art lost in the conflict was 'an area of memory that is darkened'.
To give back a good to the community is to give back the light.
This is our task, and we want to light up many more ".
