Italian renaissance fresco ‘must be put among 3,000 graves’ | Italy

After a 30-year-old dispute over a fresco painted by Piero della Francesca, an Italian court decided that it should be returned to the original location. This is despite it being used primarily as a cemetery.

The Madonna del Parto depicts the pregnant Virgin Mary in a scene called “The Madonna del Parto” and is considered to be one of Renaissance’s greatest works.

It was completed in 1460. It is believed that della Francesca created the works in situ to decorate a wall behind Santa Maria di Momentana’s altar in Monterchi. This town is located in the Arezzo region of Tuscany.

The fresco and the wall survived the 1785 earthquake that destroyed them. The painting was later removed from the wall, and it was displayed in an altar-niche inside the rebuilt chapel. Its size was greatly reduced to make room for a cemetery.

It was first attributed to della Francesca in 1889. After surviving another earthquake in 1917, it was restored and moved to 1992 in the Madonna del Parto museum in Monterchi.

The transfer to the museum, which today attracts about 40,000 visitors a year, some of them female pilgrims seeking protection during their pregnancy, sparked a tangled legal battle over the painting’s location between the council in Monterchi, the local diocese, regional authorities and the ministry of culture.

The tussle entered a new stage when the Council of State, Italy’s highest administrative court, recently ruled for the painting to be returned to its original home.

Alfredo Romanelli, Monterchi’s mayor, claimed that the small chapel, which was located just outside the town, has been rebuilt in 1956 and is no longer in its original form.

“Putting the symbol of the nativity in a cemetery in the outskirts, among 3,000 graves, doesn’t seem like a good idea to me,” he told La Stampa. “It takes some imagination.”

Romanelli stated that the chapel was not suitable for the masterpiece due to the lack of light and insufficient space for tourists.

After the issue over the appropriateness of the chapel’s setting was raised in parliament, Romanelli was summoned to meet the deputy culture minister, Lucia Borgonzoni, on 20 April. He said he could not comprehend the “senseless” decision by the court and questioned who was behind it.

Vittorio Sangbi, an art critic, deputy, and former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s close friend, is said it was a good opportunity for the work to be transferred from “a vaguely clinical” location to the place where it was produced, arguing that the chapel could be expanded to make space for “religious tourism”.

It is believed that Della Francesca painted the painting to honor his mother Romana di Pierino from Monterchi.