URBINO - '' That of Rome dedicated to Raphael is a beautiful exhibition, but it says nothing that was not already known. Ours is original and innovative, it is a new story that extends beyond painting and reconstructs a central personality of the Italian and European Renaissance ''. Vittorio Sgarbi, with his usual verve, skillfully turns the attention on the appointment that Urbino dedicates until November 1 to Baldassarre Castiglione and his famous `` Book of the Cortegiano '', gospel for the perfect gentleman and access key to understand the places of power and high society in Italy and Europe in the early 16th century. The character, from Mantua by birth, arrived in the Marche region in 1504.
Very close friend of Raphael, in the Palazzo Ducale wanted by Federico da Montefeltro, "the most beautiful that can be found in all of Italy", he sketched the treatise on court life, followed by a long rewriting and additions after the transfer to Rome as ambassador of the Gonzaga family and ended with publication in 1528, a year before his death in Toledo. His name and that of the great painter from Urbino also intertwine in the title of the exhibition, between the faces and moments of that court life that Sgarbi has reconstructed taking care of the story collected and refined together with Elisabetta Soletti. "They were the protagonists of a unique moment that made Italy's fortune - explains the historian of the Italian language -. The Renaissance myth was born in Urbino and is due to them".
In the Sale del Castellare passions, friendships and relationships of Baldassarre Castiglione with artists, sovereigns, literaries, aristocrats, popes and prelates, flow alongside paintings of the highest quality, such as the two great Titian portraying Giulio Romano and the Patriarch of Aquileia Giovanni Romani , and a selection of objects, jewels, archaeological fragments, vases, mirrors, bronzes, cameos and medals to testify his passion for collecting, widespread among nobles and aristocrats, and the antiques taste of the time. '' Castiglione was the reporter of a time that we would not know without him - said Sgarbi, the mayor of Urbino after having been councilor for culture for years -. He wrote the most extraordinary book on the Renaissance which was judged by Gramsci to be more important than Orlando Furioso, because like Machiavelli's Il Principe he recounts themes, rhythms, times, theater, literature, music, painting of an era ''.
The exhibition, organized overcoming a thousand difficulties created by Covid, discounts the fact that many works are in Rome for the most important exhibition among the celebrations for the five hundred years since Raphael's death. Elisabetta Soletti observes that Il Cortegiano highlights some fundamental characteristics suggested by Baldassarre Castiglione, such as the exercise of weapons, described by armor, and the perfect elegance of a gentleman especially in dressing. The clothing - suggested black but 'above the arms' open and cheerful colors - in court life had to confirm the hierarchy of social relations. In the hall of manuscripts and the ancient editions of Greek and Latin classics of the Castiglione library which had more than two hundred volumes, the original manuscript of the Cortegiano and an extraordinary copy - made in just two months by the painter Lino Frongia - of the magnificent portrait of Baldassarre , now among the masterpieces exhibited at the Quirinale Stables.
Not only for the book, bestseller for the entire sixteenth century with 70 editions, translated into the main European languages with a fortune lasting up to 1700, Baldassarre Castiglione deserved fame. Literate and intellectual, he was close to rulers and popes, diplomat and politician. His precious correspondence has allowed us to reconstruct his entire story, alongside the figures of Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, Leo X, the Medici, the Sforza, the Gonzaga and Isabella d'Este "first woman in the world", of Emperor Charles V and of artists - Raphael first, but also Leonardo, Titian, Giulio Romano -, of intellectuals like Pietro Bembo and scholars like Luca Pacioli, friend of Piero della Francesca and geometry theorist. "Baldassarre Castiglione and Raffaello - concludes Elisabetta Soletti - are responsible for the affirmation of the cultural primacy of the Italian Renaissance throughout Europe. They lived a golden age that lasted less than twenty years, from the arrival of the great humanist in Urbino, to his death of the painter in Rome in 1520, to that of Pope Leo X the following year ''.
