The controversy, which led to the en bloc resignation of the four professors who make up the Scientific Committee of the most important museum in Italy, is unleashed on the panel that portrays one of the two popes who made the fortune of the genius from Urbino. A portrait that, precisely on the occasion of the Roman event – organized for the 500th anniversary of the artist's death – had been restored by the Opere Dure factory in Florence thanks to the contribution of Lottomatica.
The letter of resignation of the four professors, anticipated by ANSA, came as a cold shower: Donata Levi, Tomaso Montanari, Fabrizio Moretti and Claudio Pizzorusso recall having given a negative opinion, last December 9, on the loan from Leo X which, as the painting had been included in the list of the Museum's 23 "immovable" works, i.e. works that due to their condition of fragility or simply due to their "strongly identifying" character.
The reply from the German director was immediate and punctual, who indeed vindicated his choice: "The exhibition on Raphael - he says - is an epochal cultural event, it will be one of Italy's reasons for pride in the world and it could not do without Leo X , a masterpiece which is in excellent condition after the restoration carried out by the specialists of the Opificio Opere Dure”.
And from Rome, from the Scuderie, the scholars who make up the Scientific Committee of the exhibition also make themselves heard: The portrait of Leo X, explain the president Sylvia Ferino, Francesco Paolo Di Teodoro and Vincenzo Farinella, is crucial for the path that was imagined in tributes to the 500th anniversary of the death of the master of Urbino. The portrait of Pope Leo, who had commissioned Raphael to make a plan of ancient Rome, also electing him prefect of marbles, is surrounded by all the testimonies of that immense work on ancient made by the supreme Urbino.
From Florence, the art historian Tomaso Montanari explains that the battle shared with the other outgoing professors concerns the management criteria of autonomous museums in general and the Uffizi in particular: The point does not concern the exhibition, but the type of guarantees we want for our museums. On 21 October, the Scientific Committee approved a list proposed by Schmidt of 23 immovable works, including the portrait of Leo X, with the wording: with the obligation to abide by it, considering the works contained therein absolutely immovable for reasons of identity.
Source: Ansa
