Museo Giuliano Ghelli
GIULIANO GHELLI MUSEUM OF
SAN CASCIANO VAL DI PESA
The Museo di San Casciano (headquarters of the Chianti and Florentine Valdarno Museum System) was set up in 1989 in the Church of Santa Maria del Gesù or of the Suffragio. In 2008 it was enlarged with new rooms opened in the ancient convent of Benedictine nuns, who resided here from the 17th to the 19th century. The church, still functioning today, is considered part of the museum’s itinerary. To the collection of religious art on the ground floor has been added an archaeological section, and more recently, one of contemporary art.
Holy Art
The religious art section, with works ranging from the 12th to the 20th century, coming from churches in the San Casciano territory, includes not only paintings and sculpture but also goldsmith’s work, liturgical vestments and the ‘madonnine vestite’ revered in a special cult starting from the 17th century.
The oldest item in the museum is a small pillar carved with scenes of the Nativity, used in the past as a holy water stoup. It may have been made for the Abbazia di Sant’Antimo by the Master of Cabestany, a sculptor who worked in Spain, France and Tuscany around the middle of the 12th century.
Among the collection’s masterpieces is the priceless panel depicting St. Michael the Archangel, attributed Coppo di Marcovaldo, one of the finest examples of Florentine painting prior to Cimabue. It came from the church of Sant’Angelo a Vico l’Abate, like the splendid Virgin and Child by the great Sienese painter Ambrogio Lorenzetti, dated 1319 and hence one of his earliest works.
The museum displays other 14th-century Virgin and Child paintings, including one by Lippo di Benivieni (the so-called ‘Madonna del Suffragio’), one by the Master of the Horne triptych and another by Cenni di Francesco.
Several works come from San Giovanni in Sugna, among them the Coronation of the Virgin by the 15th-century artist Neri di Bicci. From the Pieve Vecchia comes the panel depicting St. Anthony the Abbot, St. Sebastian and St. Rocco by the Master of the Campana Paintings (also known as the Master of Tavarnelle); in the background is a view of the landscape around Cerbaia.
One of the museum’s latest acquisitions is a large glazed terracotta representing the Assumption of the Virgin, produced by the Buglioni workshop in the early 16th century and coming from Santa Maria a Casavecchia.
Archeology
The displays on the first floor come from the major archaeological contexts in the territory of San Casciano and Val di Pesa, covering a time scale of over a millennium.
Opening this section is the monumental figure of an ancient archer, portrayed in bas-relief on an Etruscan stele from the VII century B.C., coming from the funerary tumulus named for it: the Archer’s Tomb.
In the orientalising stage of the VII century B.C., the Etruscan princes represented themselves as rulers from the nearby ancient Orient, as shown by the refined engraved ivories found in the Calzaiolo tumulus. The Etruscan archaic period is well represented by bronze votive statuettes unearthed in archaeological digs around the sanctuary of Sant’Angelo at Bibbione. Outstanding among the bronze statuettes of human and animal figures is a stone mould used to produce the statuettes, a find unique of its kind.
The materials from the Poggio la Croce site come from a multi-layer context, whose first evidence consists of an important funerary stele in sandstone dating from the late VI century B.C., inscribed with the name Mamarkes in Etruscan. A funerary site in the late Archaic age, this area was converted to a fortified settlement in Hellenistic times. It has yielded ceramics of everyday use dating from the IV-III century B.C.
The Romanising of the territory, with its network of villas and farms, brought radical changes. A new world, where Roman customs take the place of Etruscan life, is demonstrated by various finds, such as a grindstone turned by animals and agricultural tools from the Ponterotto villa, as well as the clay piping system at San Giovanni in Sugana.
Contemporary Art
In this section, focussing mainly on works by Chianti artists, both native and adopted, special attention is devoted to the museum’s namesake: Giuliano Ghelli, a painter and sculptor of international standing. In addition to a portrait of the artist by Alfredo Futuro, some works by Ghelli are displayed, with the generous permission of his heirs: a lithograph of The Baron in the Trees (2000) and four small busts of women from the Terracotta Army, created starting in 2003 and interpreted as an ‘army of peace’.
The Museum also exhibits two works by the sculptor Paolo Staccioli: Travellers at Rest(2017) and Trunk of a Warrior(2016), subjects typical of his aesthetics, expressed through the artist’s favourite technique, iridescent glazed terracotta, as well as bronze. By Giovanni Chilleri is the ceramic sculpture Elegance (2016), expressing two basic elements of his work: strength and harmony The group of sculptures – which includes the Queen of the Zodiac (2012) in glazed terracotta by Silvia Massai – concludes with Awaiting (2019) by Paolo Benvenuti, a small-format work created, in one of the artist’s distinctive traits, out of poor materials, in this case of various kinds
Noteworthy among the paintings is the oil on canvas titled Temple of Apollo and Dionysus (2006) by Eugenia Liaci. The subject, suspended between form and dissolution, weight and lightness, heat and cold, evokes that particular condition where conflicting tendencies seem to find a balance. The French-American artist Louis Jaquet, drawing inspiration from such apparently distant themes as aesthetic beauty and faith, creates works of sensual and oneiric fascination. To the San Casciano Museum he has donated Soldier Ryan, done in 2014 to mark the 70th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy. Ordet is instead a work from 2011 by Gianni Dorigo, an expression of his style that draws inspiration from the world of the cinema. aquet’s work was in fact motivated by the 1954 film Ordet by the Danish director Carl Theodore Dreyer. The new contemporary art section is kept constantly updated, with works displayed in rotation.
Contacts and Social
Opening Hours
From Thursday to Sunday | 10.00 am-1.00 pm, 4.00-7.00 pm(1 aprile-31 ottobre)
From Thursday to Sunday | 10.00 am-1.00 pm, 3.00-6.00 pm(1 novembre-31 marzo)
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