Works of art must be seen in two versions: the commission and the iconography.
As much as I love art, I have increasingly felt drawn to the story that generated that work for a very simple reason: I don't have the expertise of an art historian.
For this reason, when I decided to approach Giovanni Bellini's painting in the Marche region, I felt I was dealing with something beyond my narrative capabilities; his personal story didn't appeal to me much, and probably his paintings in general didn't either. However, I recognized a mastery in them that, if I took the Pesaro Altarpiece as an example, far surpassed that of other artists, without explaining how.
But equally, since I like stories, to talk about Giambellino in the Marche I would never have thought of ending up in Matelica.
That's fine with me, so I learn to venture into fields that aren't mine.
So what attracted me? Yes, the history, but not only that. Just looking at the panel, magnificently preserved at the Piersanti Museum in the center of Matelica, is enough to see that we're completely out of context. These aren't the usual Bellini Madonnas—I'm talking about Giovanni's, of course—so I'm forced to divert my attention to the work of his father, Jacopo, and his half-brother, Gentile, as the experts state.
I refer to the Madonna of Constantinople complete with predella, which can be admired in the aforementioned Museum.
A commissioned work, essentially golden from the point of view of the optical field, and yet the artist, or rather the artists in this case, attempt to overcome the rudimentary stage of pure Byzantine colorism and to express form and color where chiaroscuro is reduced to a minimum.
Why? Because they are Venetians first and foremost, and Venetians second. Even close relatives of Mantegna.
Although the client, a certain Bartolomeo Colonna from Chios, was not one at all: he was Greek of Genoese origin but lived for the first part of his life on the island of Chios, in the Cyclades.
It is therefore the story of those who left their hearts in those places to escape bad luck: the capture of Constantinople in 1454 by the Ottomans, a change of plans and perspectives that shocked all the countries of the Mediterranean and diverted them following the new world of Christopher Columbus.
Thus the Adriatic corridor was opened and strengthened, ushering in the golden age of Italian art and politics that followed: we are talking about the Renaissance.
Renaissance from what and why? Certainly not from the Middle Ages, as we were told in high school, but from the ashes of a more advanced civilization that nevertheless fell.
This should give us pause for thought.
Bartolomeo Colonna fled from Chios, landed first in Crete and then turned towards Ancona, probably helped by some friends including Ciriaco Pizzecolli, a humanist dedicated to trade in the Mediterranean and then through a series of coincidences that are never coincidental he arrived in Matelica where he was offered a commendation as Abbot of the ancient Abbey of Rotis, in the immediate vicinity.
He was joined by about fifty exiles of Genoese and Venetian origin and here they attempted to start a new life.
Bartolomeo was a resourceful man, he knew Greek and Latin as well as all the classical works and thanks to that commendation which granted him relative tranquility he also ventured into printing, being close to Fabriano after all and the typographic activity transformed into a booklet which today is kept in the Ambrosiana Library in Milan entitled “Vita della Madonna” by Antonio Cornazzano.
Matelica had been chosen as the place of election and devotion of the Madonna of Constantinople which Bartolomeo commissioned from the famous Venetian workshop of Jacopo Bellini where his sons also worked.
The sense of Nostos – nostalgia – is transferred into a panel depicting the Hoditrygia, Ὁδηγήτρια, as it is defined, or the one who leads, who had in fact led them all and brought them safely here.
How could we not thank you and the community by donating such an important painting?
I try to describe the table, guided by my love for art: I like her serene look,
different from the hieratic fixity of the Theotokos Greek, as if he had already passed the Calvary of that Child gathered in his sepulchral mantle where His human nature is remembered in that barely veiled nudity,
just to make us understand that He came down into the world and became man among us, that is, not taking advantage of his divine nature which would have at least avoided him suffering and the red coral necklace is the clue:
It represents the blood that flowed to purify us, like the blood that flowed on the streets of Constantinople, as Isidore of Kiev, present at the catastrophe, recounts, sacrificed like a lamb to cleanse us of the evil that the West was unable to fight.
Sloth is the worst of our evils, the most despicable because it leads to nothingness which is nothing other than death in life.
With the fall of Constantinople, the world was reborn from its ashes, but only those who knew how to gather them up took flight.
The lives of the Saints in the predella are an example of a life well spent, strengthened by the Spirit they were able to capture and honor, painted in a typically Giambellinian style according to Professor Andrea de Marchi of the University of Florence, and this is evident in the formal composure of the small icon, which is replaced by the dark background, where the Saints have a fluidity similar to a film reel that tells their beautiful stories in a more modern and less static manner, and therefore more human, yet full of passion.
Piersanti Museum – Matelica
Opening hours: Thursday – Sunday 10am-13pm and 15pm-18pm
Tel +39 0732 3049
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