The Museo Castelvecchio (Old Fortress) is one of the most important museums in Verona, mainly dedicated to Italian and European art. The museum was restored and created according to modern criteria between 1958 and 1974 by Carlo Scarpa, of which it has become one of the most complete and best preserved interventions. It is located in the complex of the Scaligerian fortress of Castelvecchio, occupying about thirty rooms and related sectors: sculpture, Italian and foreign painting, ancient weapons, ceramics, jewelry, miniatures and ancient city bells.
The castle was built between 1354 and 1356 by order of Cangrande II
della Scala for defensive reasons, but for a short time it was also the
residence of della Scala. Its intended use remained military, but it was
changed and modified depending on how it was used in subsequent periods,
also becoming an ammunition depot, and during the reign of the
Serenissima, it housed a military engineering academy. During the
Napoleonic era, it suffered various damages: the towers were lowered,
the battlements were removed, and between 1801 and 1806 the north and
east sides (where the Gallery now stands) were built to house the French
barracks.
Birth of the civic museum
After the transition to
the Italian state, it remained a barracks until in 1924, thanks to
Antonio Avena, director of the city museums, and Ferdinando Forlati,
architect of the General Directorate, a restoration was carried out in a
medieval style, and it became the residence of the civil collections of
Veronese art with works from the early Middle Ages until the eighteenth
century. During the restoration in style, the towers were raised, the
passages were restored, and the interiors were decorated in the style of
the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
During the Second World War,
Verona was one of the most bombarded cities in Italy due to its
strategic position and the presence of many ministries of the Italian
Social Republic, and during one of the many Allied raids on January 4,
1945, Castelvecchio was damaged and only a few months later the fleeing
Germans blew up all the bridges in Verona, including the Castelvecchio
bridge. Subsequently, the restoration of the castle was entrusted to
Carlo Scarpa, while the restoration of the bridge was entrusted to
Libero Cecchini, with superintendent Piero Gazzola.
Restoration
by Carlo Scarpa
Carlo Scarpa considered Castelvecchio to be a single
organism in which to intervene without distinguishing between building
restoration and museographic planning, a method he had also used in
important previous works such as the Galleria dell'Accademia in Venice,
the Palazzo Abatellis in Venice. Palermo, Gypsoteca Canova in Possagno.
The intervention of the Venetian architect penetrated the pre-existing
structures, suggesting extensions, unpublished distribution solutions
and new routes.
The architect Arrigo Rudi and the engineer Carlo Maschietto also
collaborated in the restoration and creation of the museum, the work
mainly by Carlo Scarpa, but the final work was the result of a concert
between numerous voices: designer, staff, museum staff (Dr. Angelo
Aldrighetti, surveyor Angelo Rudella and carpenter Fulvio Don) , the
administrators (notably the mayor Giorgio Zanotto and the cultural
adviser Alberto De Mori), the technical department of the municipality
(headed by the engineer Rocco Nicolò), the managers (notably the
architect Pietro Gazzola) and the craftsmen who worked on the
restoration actively collaborated to achieve a great end result.
Particularly fruitful was the dialogue between Carlo Scarpa and the
director of the museum, Lisisco Magagnato, who, through their
reflections on the themes of restoration and the forms taken by the
monument over time, led to the most important changes.
Numerous
craftsmen worked for Carlo Scarpa at the construction site of
Castelvecchio, and among the most present are the Castellani company,
which did all the building work and the plastering, and the company of
Mario and Eugenio de Luigi from Venice, who did the stucco work.
First intervention: Reggia restoration
In 1955, he became director of
the municipal museums of the Licisco Magagnato, who focused his work on
the renewal and improvement of numerous city museums, and the fulcrum of
his work was the intervention of Carlo Scarpa, who became famous for
preparing prestigious exhibitions and museums of Castelvecchio. This
task was entrusted to the Venetian architect on the occasion of the
exhibition "From Altichiero to Pisanello" in 1956. Scarpa decided to
organize his restoration work and the realization of the exhibition
according to modern criteria based on post-war restoration theories. The
first building was the restoration of the so-called wing of the Reggia,
that is, the residence of the Scaligers: in the course of the work, new
archaeological finds were revealed, routes for visiting the public,
attics, floors, stairs, a lighting system were developed, and coarse
lime plaster was applied.
The art gallery exhibition in the
Reggia Wing, which features Venetian works from the thirteenth to the
sixteenth century, offers an innovative setting for both the selection
of works and the display systems:
for polyptychs, simple tufa shelves
were arranged;
for station crosses, small tuff cubes were constructed
to support them;
for the panels from which the nineteenth-century
frames were removed, simple frames with a colored background were
designed to highlight the work covered in cloth or velvet. Some of the
paintings were displayed on revolving stands, others on easels already
used for the installation of the Correr Museum in Venice, and still
others were hung on side stands.
The restoration of the Reggia
was completed in time for the 1958 exhibition, but the route of this
wing was only connected to the second floor of the Mastio (and therefore
to the gallery) in 1964 via a skywalk.
Subsequently, work continued in the nineteenth-century building in
Corte d'Armi, which has since been called the Gallery wing. Inside is a
series of seven large rooms, which are illuminated by large gothic-style
multi-pane windows, inserted during the restoration of the twenties and
connected by vaulted passages. During the first stage of the restoration
of the Gallery, false frescoes and sober plastering of the interiors
were eliminated, but already at this first stage, when Venetian floors
and wooden coffered ceilings, made in the 1920s, were still present,
Carlo Scarpa, in agreement with the director of the museum, modeled the
placement of the great medieval sculptures by the Master of
Sant'Anastasius and his school, placing them on thin supports made of
Prun stone, and only when it was finally decided which works and where
to place, were there structural interventions.
The most
significant part of the restoration, the project of which in September
1959 was largely determined by now, began in 1958. As early as 1962,
numerous archaeological and historical discoveries forced the architect
to modify this project as new elements or problems, so much so that he
had to ask for a version of the project. The most substantial work ended
in 1964, while the library was built between 1968 and 1969 and the Avena
room was completed between 1973 and 1975, which was supposed to contain
eighteenth-century paintings. During the intervention, it was decided to
make the changes made to the monument over the centuries easy to read,
as well as to differentiate the new intervention, taking into account
the characteristics of medieval architecture.
It is with this
restoration/installation that Carlo Scarpa reaches his artistic
maturity, in particular, it is in the Gallery wing that absolutely
innovative spatial, architectural and exhibition solutions are
concentrated. Bold is the choice of works on the first floor of the
Gallery, for which the Venetian architect has chosen obscure but
especially expressive sculptures from the Veronese world, such as the
bathtub, the sarcophagus and the mutilated fragment, whose vitality is
given by pink material and ivory, and which acquire an outstanding
historical significance due to their museographic position. Another
innovative choice was the way in which he decided to offer the public a
Madonna and Child against a "red Mondrian" background, placed in the
central hall and supported by a simple bare iron shelf, or the placement
of Saint Cecilia and the Crucifixion, in addition to the preparation of
fine jewelry in the sanctuary. The location of the equestrian statue of
Cangrande I, previously located in the Scaligerian arches, above the
church of Santa Maria Antica, was also masterful, where it was replaced
by a copy. Cangrande is fundamental to the history of Verona, he is in
fact the most beloved and famous member of the Scaliger dynasty and
through his conquests he became the guide of the Ghibelline faction in
northern Italy, but he is also famous for being a friend and protector
of the great poet Dante Alighieri: it is for this reason that his statue
was placed at the nodal point of the museum's route and at a place that,
as archeological excavations have shown, is an important fragment of the
city's history, placed in a heraldic sign. and dominance over the city.
Placed on a concrete support, the shape of the folded sheet of which
resembles the shape of origami, it can be admired from the museum route
against the backdrop of the texture of the castle walls or from the
garden against the backdrop of a wooden roof. which has as reference the
architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright and traditional Japanese wooden
houses.
The garden, laid out just a few days before the opening of the museum, is a prelude to a simple but impressive museum. It is a rectangular lawn bordered on the south by two hedges that form a diaphragm for those who climb the slight slope to the museum entrance. The path to the entrance is surrounded by two shallow pools of water that reflect the castle at certain times of the day, as happens in Japanese gardens. The idea for two pools of water came unexpectedly during the work, when Scarpa noticed two nylon sheets in the yard, over which two puddles formed.
Carlo Scarpa had the ability to combine traditional materials typical of medieval architecture, such as pebbles, tuff, and brick, with materials typical of modern architecture, such as reinforced concrete left exposed or hammered, to make the surface more vibrant. He did a great deal of quality work on the external treatment of the sacellum, made from the local Prun stone, and for which he found references in the pavements of the Doge's Palace in Venice and the Palladian Basilica in Vicenza, but revisited in a sensitive interpretation the modern painting rendered volumetrically in this architectural space. There are many ideas borrowed from contemporary painting, in particular from the De Stijl movement and above all from its greatest exponent, Piet Mondrian: he certainly took Mondrian's example in the color choice of Venetian stucco and in the design of elements such as windows, while while De Stijl is found in the orthogonality of structural elements (in the concrete floors framed by Prun stone, in the cross of the attics, in the sign of the iron beam that crosses the entire gallery) and in the arrangement of sculptures on square and rectangular slabs.
The museum's collections open with a collection of Romanesque
sculpture, still indebted to the Roman style, derived from models that
Verona has always been in abundance, parts of which come from religious
buildings that have collapsed or been destroyed over the centuries.
Among the most significant works are mentioned:
The Crucifixion and
the Mourners, a fourteenth-century work in tuff (originally painted) by
the so-called Master of Sant'Anastasia from the Church of San Giacomo di
Tomba;
Sarcophagus of Saints Sergius and Bacchus, bas-relief of 1179;
Santa Cecilia and Santa Caterina, sculptures from the 14th century by
the master Sant Anastasia;
Equestrian statue of Cangrande della Scala
from the Gothic complex of the Scaliger Arches;
Equestrian statue of
Mastino II della Scala, also from the Scaliger Arch.
The collections unfold in the articulated rooms of the castle, inside
and outside suggestive courtyards, halls, early medieval walls,
passageways.
In the residential wing of the castle, built to
protect the family from both external and internal threats to the city,
there are pictorial collections of the Veronese and Venetian schools:
the department of Gothic painting, which survived the exciting season in
Verona thanks to masters such as Pisanello (with the famous Madonna
della Quaglia), Altichiero, Michelino da Besozzo (with the Madonna del
Roseto, formerly attributed to Stefano da Verona) or the lesser known
Turone da Maxio and Michele Giambono.
Then we move on to the work
of Verona at the turn of the Renaissance, with the first pre-Mantain
attempts to imitate the new style in the work of Antonio Badile and some
masterpieces of the Venetian school, such as the great crucifixion of
Jacopo Bellini, to then come to the full Renaissance with the work of
Domenico and Francesco Morone, father and son , and Liberale da Verona.
There is no shortage of masterpieces by great masters such as Giovanni
Bellini's Madonna and Child Standing on a Parapet, Filippo Lippi's The
Merciful Christ, Carlo Crivelli's Madonna of the Passion and Andrea
Mantegna's The Holy Family and Saint. Girolamo dai Libri is a Veronese
artist who learns Mantegna's lesson best by applying it to his
masterpieces. Paolo Morando and Francesco Caroto, with the famous "Young
Man with a Puppet Drawing", which was clearly influenced by Leonardo,
betray his unique study of the relationship between the observed and the
observer, between the portrayer, the portrait and the viewer.
We
then move on to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, passing through
some of the early works of Paolo Caliari, known as Il Veronese (such as
the Bevilacqua-Lazise altarpiece and the Lamentation of the Dead Christ,
which sanctioned its glory), Jacopo Tintoretto, Paolo Farinati, and
Alessandro. Turki, known as Orbetto, author of a great fortune in
Verona, as well as in Rome, his second home.
From the eighteenth
century there is one of the main characters, Tiepolo, depicting Eliodoro
sacking the temple.
In 1974, the director of the city's museums, Lisisco Magagnato, arranged to purchase all 662 design drawings by Carlo Scarpa directly from him, so today the museum's archive contains complete documentation of the planning, restoration and installation work of the famous Venetian architect. . There are general plans, and sketches with various solutions, and executive drawings, and sheets with numerous notes by the architect.
The Castelvecchio Museum also has an interesting collection of medieval and renaissance weapons and armor, including Cangrande's sword, recovered from his sarcophagus when it was first opened in the 1920s.
On the evening of November 19, 2015, three thieves stole 17 works of
art.
The full list of stolen works is as follows:
Antonio
Pisano, known as Pisanello, Madonna and Child, known as the Madonna and
Quail, tempera on wood, 54×32 cm;
Jacopo Bellini, Penitent Saint
Jerome, tempera on wood, 95×65 cm;
Giovanni Benini, "Portrait of
Girolamo Pompeii", oil on canvas, 85 × 63 cm;
Andrea Mantegna, Holy
Family with a Saint, tempera on canvas, 76 × 55.5 cm;
Giovanni
Francesco Caroto, Portrait of a young man with a child's drawing, oil on
panel, 37×29 cm;
Giovanni Francesco Caroto, Portrait of a young
Benedictine monk, oil on canvas, 43×33 cm;
Jacopo Tintoretto, Nursing
Madonna, oil on canvas, 89×76 cm;
Jacopo Tintoretto, Transportation
of the Ark of the Covenant, oil on panel, 28×80 cm;
Jacopo
Tintoretto, Balthassar's Banquet, oil on panel, 26.5 × 79 cm;
Jacopo
Tintoretto, Samson, oil on panel, 26.5 × 79 cm;
Jacopo Tintoretto,
Judgment of Solomon, oil on panel, 26.5 × 79.5 cm;
Circle Jacopo
Tintoretto, Portrait of a man, oil on canvas, 54×44 cm;
Domenico
Tintoretto, "Portrait of Marco Pascualigo", oil on canvas, 48 × 40 cm;
Workshop of Domenico Tintoretto, Portrait of a Venetian admiral, oil on
canvas, 110×89 cm;
Peter Paul Rubens, Lady Liknidov, oil on canvas,
76×60 cm;
Hans de Yod, Landscape, also known as Landscape with a
Waterfall, oil on canvas, 70×99 cm;
Hans de Yod, Seaport, oil on
canvas, 70×99 cm.
Art historian Vittorio Sgarbi called the theft "one
of the most serious thefts in the history of Italian art" and director
Paola Marini called "a very deep wound". The investigation is entrusted
to the operational core of the Carabinieri Corps of the Carabinieri
Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage.
On March 15,
2016, the Carabinieri arrested 12 people between Moldavia and Verona,
including a guard on duty the night of the robbery, believed to be an
insider at the museum. The paintings were found on May 6 next year in
the Odessa region, Ukraine, when they were about to be taken to Moldova
to be returned to Kiev, in the presence of Ukrainian President Petro
Poroshenko and the Minister of Cultural Heritage and Activities and
Tourism Dario Franceschini, on December 21 of the same year.