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The Archbishop Antonio da Saluzzo Receives Offerings from the People
Lucio Fontana1950 - 1951
Museo Diocesano Milano
Milano, Italy
Details
- Title: The Archbishop Antonio da Saluzzo Receives Offerings from the People
- Creator Lifespan: 1899 - 1968
- Creator Nationality: Italian
- Creator Gender: Male
- Creator Death Place: Comabbio, Varese
- Creator Birth Place: Rosario di Santa Fé, Argentina
- Date: 1950 - 1951
- Provenance: Milan, Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo
- Physical Dimensions: w169 x h98 x d45 cm
- Painter, sculptor: Lucio Fontana
- Description: In 1950, Lucio Fontana joined the competition organized by the Venerable Fabbrica del Duomo for the realization of the fifth door of the Cathedral of Milan, part of the project to complete the cathedral started under Fascism. The theme of the decoration of the door, “Origins and Happenings of the Cathedral”, was chosen by Cardinal Ildefonso Schuster (1880 - 1954). In 1951, the artist participated in the first step of the competition by presenting a model of the door which stood out for its originality and compositional inventiveness. The history of the Cathedral flowed in a continuum with no separation between the scenes. The extreme formal synthesis with which the twelve episodes followed one another, however, did not satisfy the committee. They invited the artist to make some formal and compositional changes for the second step of the competition, during which Fontana won the first prize along with Minguzzi. However, in the following years, tired of the long uncertainty of the Commission on who should win the contest, Fontana abandoned the project. This section, presented in the first step of the competition, depicts Archbishop Antonio da Saluzzo, leader of the diocese of Milan from 1376 to 1401, under whom work began on the construction of the cathedral in 1386. The scene is divided symmetrically into two parts. On the left side, the Archbishop sits, accompanied by another figure, perhaps the Duke Gian Galeazzo, while on the right, a group of figures, representing the community of believers, hold out their offerings for the construction of the Cathedral.
- Type: sculpture
- Rights: © Archivio fotografico Museo Diocesano, Milano
- Medium: plaster
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