Raphael: Leo X, clash on loan from the Uffizi in Rome

(ANSA) - ROME, FEBRUARY 25 - "Stop the portrait of Leo X". A few days after the inauguration of the great exhibition at the Scuderie del Quirinale (March 5), with the nightmare of the coronavirus that still threatens its opening, it is a clash on the divine Raffaello, or rather on one of the almost 50 of his works guaranteed at the Roman exhibition by the Gallerie degli Uffizi. The controversy, which led to the resignation in bulk of the four professors who make up the Scientific Committee of the most important museum in Italy, is unleashed on the canvas depicting one of the two popes who made the fortune of the genius from Urbino. A portrait that right on the occasion of the Roman event - organized for the 500th anniversary of the artist's death - was restored by the Opificiodelle Opere Dure in Florence thanks to the contribution of Lottomatica.
Donata Levi, Tomaso Montanari, Fabrizio Moretti and ClaudioPizzorusso recall having given a negative opinion, on 9 December, to the loan of Leone X which, they emphasize, had been included (in another document also approved by the director Eike Schmidt) in the list of 23 "immovable works" "delmuseo, or the works that for their fragile conditions or simply for their" strongly identity "character.
Immediate and punctual the reply of the German director, who pre-sells his choice: "The exhibition on Raphael - he says - is an epochal cultural event, will be one of the reasons for Italy's pride in the world and could not do without Leo X, a masterpiece between the other in excellent health after the restoration carried out by the specialists of the Opere Dure factory. " (HANDLE).