It will be at the center of a dossier exhibition in the Gallerie d'Italia – Palazzo Leoni Montanari, the Bank's museum and cultural venue in Vicenza, from 8 October 2016 to 11 December 2016, included in the Bellinian Itinerary promoted by the City.
Itinerary that, in the space of a few minutes' walk, in the heart of the city, offers two other masterpieces by the great artist: the grandiose Baptism of Christ, in Santa Corona, and the Crucified Christ, in Palazzo Chiericati.
For Vicenza, the Transfiguration represents a great comeback: this magnificent oil on panel (115 cm x 154 cm) was commissioned from Bellini to be placed on the altar of the Fioccardo chapel in the Vicenza Cathedral.
In 1613 the chapel was destined for a different purpose and the Bellini work was removed. It can be found later in the Farnese Collection in Parma. With the passage of the Farnese heirs to Naples, in 1734 Bellini also followed Charles of Bourbon. First placed in the Royal Palace, it then entered the Farnesiana Collection of Capodimonte. Here the quality of the painting will strike the French generals who in 1799 withdraw it and send it beyond the Alps. Fortunately, in the Roman stage, the work was recovered. The French attempt to appropriate it was repeated in 1806, thwarted by Ferdinand IV who saved his Bellini by transferring him to Palermo.
In the beautiful painting, the transfigured Jesus reveals his divine nature in the presence of three apostles: he wears white robes, which have the clarity, transparency and beauty of clouds. Jesus is the center of all compositional discourse. The framing is frontal: the hands are open, according to the gesture of the ancient prayers, classic and at the same time Christian, authoritative and gentle.
The Prophets "converse" with him about his imminent passion and death. They are placed on either side of Christ: on the left, Elijah, cloaked in pink; to the right, Moses, dressed in rosy ocher and red, holding a scroll in his hand.
But the setting is also striking: a vast landscape in the Veneto and Po valleys, where the bell tower of the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare in Classe and the Tomb of Theodoric in Ravenna can be recognized, and where one can see a countryside criss-crossed by paths, at the bottom of hills and mountains that are lost on the horizon, dominated by skies furrowed by white clouds blowing in the wind.
To welcome this "Guest" who temporarily returns to Vicenza, are two other, no less illustrious, masterpieces by Giovanni Bellini.
First of all, the famous Baptism of Christ, in Santa Corona. The large altarpiece (measuring 4 meters in height for a base of 263 cm) is painted in oil on panel and signed on the rock at the bottom by the author. Dated between 1500 and 1502, it is among the first in the artist's production to show a calm immersion of the figures in the space that surrounds them, crossed by light and air.
The scene is articulated according to the traditional scheme which proposes Jesus in the centre, facing the spectator, while John the Baptist, on the left, baptizes him from a rock. Three angelic figures in gaudy robes, an allegory of the three theological Virtues, witness the event, while, from above, God the Father between cherubim and seraphim sends the dove of the Holy Spirit.
The work is a masterpiece of art but it is also a synthesis of meanings and symbols. In the painting, for example, the water of the river stops at Christ's feet, to avoid being reflected in it, as there cannot be more than one divine figure. The red parrot is instead a symbol of the Passion.
The extraordinary nature of the altarpiece is linked to the exceptional softness of the tones of the landscape and the sky, from which descends a warm light that creeps into the valleys around the Jordan. The figures of Christ, the Baptist and the three Angels are enveloped, almost caressed.
In Palazzo Chiericati, in conjunction with its reopening after the completion of the XNUMXth century wing, the scientific director Giovanni Federico Carlo Villa wanted to dedicate an extremely refined exhibition dossier to Christ crucified in a Jewish cemetery, a heritage work of Palazzo Thiene, seat of the Popular Bank of Vicenza. The table is also precious for its exceptional state of conservation and unique for the subject represented. In fact we are not dealing with a 'typical' Crucifixion. Here Bellini places the crucified Christ alone in a wholly atypical environment, characterized by three tombstones which shape and inscriptions declare Jewish, in an extra-urban landscape close to a city that appears at once real and ideal.
Giovanni Villa, in welcoming this work granted by Palazzo Thiene, wanted to make it the fulcrum of a dossier exhibition aimed at narrating the invention of the modern landscape and the astonishing pictorial quality of one of the greatest revolutionaries in the history of Western art. A story will develop in the exhibition halls which will pass from the architectural landscape to the botanical one - over thirty species magnificently portrayed by Bellini - and finally the anatomical one, in a study that makes the Venetian artist an attentive exegete of every real data.
A path will therefore be built around the three works by Bellini in Vicenza in order to enhance the role of the first Italian painter held by the artist in his time, a true unifier in a single language of the many artistic dialects of the peninsula.
