Comparison of the last judgments in Turin. Beato Angelico in the eyes of Bartholomeus Spranger – Turin – Arte.it

Turin – Painted in tempera and gold on wood, the Final judgment of the Museum of San Marco represents the first known representation of this theme created by Beato Angelico, destined to be renewed several times during his career.
In this tripartite structure, the figure of Christ the Judge dominates in the light of heavenly glory, flanked by the Virgin, Saint John the Baptist and a host of saints. In the lower part, a double row of open graves separates the blessed from the damned who are pushed by demons to the depths of hell, where eternal punishment awaits them.
From February 6 to May 3, the Royal Museums of Turin organize the file exhibition on the second floor of the Galleria Sabauda Fra Angelico in the eyes of Bartholomeus Spranger. Comparison of universal judgments. Beato Angelico’s panel depicting the Last Judgment, preserved at the San Marco Museum in Florence – exceptionally lent by the Regional Directorate of National Museums of Tuscany, as part of cultural relations and exchanges between museums of the National Museum System of the Ministry of Culture – enters into dialogue with Spranger in an exhibition file. The work, painted by the Flemish artist between 1570 and 1571 for Pope Pius V, is part of the collections of the Galleria Sabauda. Inspired by Angelico’s prototype, Spranger’s work allows us to explore the methods of reception, re-elaboration and transmission of an extremely successful figurative model, revealing the transformations the subject underwent in the transition from the early Renaissance to full Mannerism.

The exhibition coincides with the return to the Royal Museums of the panel by Fra Giovanni da Fiesole depicting the Madonna of Humility, on loan to the monographic exhibition Beato Angelico in Florence.
Bartholomeus Spranger’s Last Judgment, executed in Rome around 1571, commissioned by Pope Pius V for the Dominican Monastery of Santa Croce, in Bosco Marengo (Alessandria), preserves the iconographic structure and decorative complexity of Beato Angelico’s inventions, although interpreted with an updated sensibility, paying attention to the precepts of the Counter-Reformation. On the left, in the Earthly Paradise, among the characters destined for salvation, we see the face of Pope Pius V, depicted as in his most famous official portraits, with a camauro and mozzetta in red velvet. In the first room of the file exhibition, the panels with reproductions of the two versions of the Judgment allow us to recognize the characters depicted. The results of some non-invasive scientific studies, carried out in collaboration with the restoration laboratory of the Royal Museums of Turin for the painting by Bartholomeus Spranger, are combined in the second room with those of the studies carried out in 2019 by Marcello Picollo and Giovanni Bartolozzi (CNR-IFAC, Florence), together with Susanna Bracci (CNR-ISPC, Florence), on the occasion of the restoration of the Final judgment by Beato Angelico.

Installation, “Beato Angelico in the eyes of Bartholomeus Spranger. Comparison of the Last Judgments”, Royal Museums of Turin | With thanks to: © Andrea Guermani for the Royal Museums of Turin

The two palettes are very similar and rich in precious materials, from ultramarine blue to cinnabar red, while the gold in Beato Angelico’s painting has been replaced by Spranger with a pigment, giallorino. The exhibition continues with more information about the execution technique of the different gildings used by Beato Angelico in the extraordinary panel of the Madonna of Humility, the artist’s mature masterpiece.

The exhibition is enriched by a video made by Stefano P. Testa for Lab80 film and text by Alessandro Uccelli, which evokes a close dialogue between Bartholomeus Spranger and Beato Angelico.