ARTE FIERA OBSERVATORY

Gian Luca Farinelli
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Gian Luca Farinelli has been the director of Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna since 2000. In 1986, he created the Cinema Ritrovato festival, and in 1992 promoted the opening of the restoration laboratory L’Immagine Ritrovata. He has supervised hundreds of restoration projects and was a key figure in the creation of Association des Cinémathèques Européennes. In 2014, he was awarded the prestigious Silver Medallion from the Festival di Telluride for his work in the conservation and promotion of film heritage.

We’re waiting to read the new government decree concerning the pandemic, which it seems will now close museums and exhibits after the previous one had closed theatres and cinemas. Therefore, I want to talk about the extraordinary exhibit that brought the Griffoni Polyptych back to Bologna.

Presented by Genus Bononiae (the museum project chaired by Fabio Roversi Monaco) and curated by Mauro Natale in collaboration with Cecilia Cavalca, the exhibit was scheduled to open in late February but was postponed due to the pandemic; it finally opened at the end of May and now everyone fears it will soon have to close. It has to be seen, for many reasons. First of all, for its history: Vasari considered it one of the most important works of the Italian Renaissance. In 1725, its new owner, Monsignore Pompeo Aldrovandi, had it taken apart and had the panels converted into paintings, which subsequently went to antiques markets and finally to nine international museums, their current owners. So, after 300 years, the work was forgotten, considered old and obsolete. But in the 1930s, back when there was no web and only black&white photographs, Roberto Longhi, a brilliant art historian (also credited with training the eye of Pier Paolo Pasolini), intuited that the various works were part of a single polyptych – the Griffoni Polyptych. Now, after almost 90 years, his intuition has been almost entirely confirmed by experts and by available documents.

The exhibit is exemplary because it lets us fully enjoy this temporary discovery, delving deeply into 15th-century art in Bologna. Created by Francesco del Cossa (from Ferrara) and Ercole de’ Roberti, the work is of dazzling beauty and elegance. Especially the predella, with its reference to Niccolò dell’Arca’s Lamentation over the Dead Christ, and which, more than narrating the miracles of San Vincenzo Ferrer (to whom the altarpiece is dedicated), emphasises the extraordinary visionary imagination of these two young painters. When Liliana Cavan (who had studied with Roberto Longhi and with whom I went to the exhibit) saw the predella, she shouted “But this is Renaissance Vogue!,” because there is such an opulent display of hats, jackets, colours, elegance, glances between the sexes and among the many figures, that it’s impossible not to feel the vibrations, sensibilities, and vitality of the late 1400s. A genuine sensory and cultural experience, a voyage that I hope will still be possible, despite the lockdown. 


Reconstruction of Griffoni Polyptych,  by Francesco del Cossa and Ercole de’ Roberti (from Cecilia Cavalca, La pala d’altare a Bologna nel Rinascimento. Opere, artisti e città. 1450-1500, Cinisello Balsamo, Silvana Editoriale 2013, p. 266. Coutesy of Cecilia Cavalca and Silvana Editoriale Spa)
 


Griffoni Polyptych : detail of the predella