Prato: Palazzo Pretorio

My two visits to the Palazzo Pretorio in Prato both got off to a rather bad start. In the summer of 2020 my better half and I arrived just too late to visit the museum. All we could do was have a little conversation with a friendly employee of the local tourist office. At the start of 2024 I returned to Prato alone and this time I was again welcomed by a friendly employee. I asked him for the opening hours of the small church of Spirito Santo, a little gem in the city that has, among other things, a panel painting by Jacopo di Cione from the fourteenth century. Unfortunately the man did not know the opening hours, and when I went to the church myself I found it closed. The employee could provide me with the opening hours of the Cappella Migliorati in the church of San Francesco, but these turned out to be incorrect. The church was undergoing a thorough restoration and the doors to the chapels were closed and locked. Fortunately the museum of the Palazzo Pretorio was open that day. I rented an audio guide, which truly enriched my visit, and set out to explore the almost deserted museum.

The Palazzo Pretorio is a remarkable building. It is basically an amalgamation of three separate buildings, which date from the end of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth century. The Palazzo Pretorio was the seat of the podestà, a term that is commonly translated as “mayor”. The building also served as a prison for a long time. In the sixteenth century part of the palazzo collapsed, and at the end of the nineteenth century its condition was so deplorable that demolition was seriously considered. Fortunately the decision was taken in 1909 to restore the Palazzo Pretorio, and in 1912 it was designated as the seat of Prato’s civic museum. That museum had, by the way, been founded as early as 1858. It was previously housed in the Palazzo Comunale, the large building opposite the Palazzo Pretorio. The museum has a nice collection of works that come from churches, convents and public buildings. The collection was complemented by donations, legacies and purchases. Outside in the square in front of the palazzo we find the statue of Francesco di Marco Datini (1335-1410). We will meet this Merchant of Prato – the title of a book by the English writer Iris Origo, published in 1957 – again inside the museum.

Prato is famous because of the Sacra Cintola or Sacred Belt of Mary, which according to tradition was taken from the Holy Land to Prato by a pilgrim. The Belt is now kept in a chapel in the Duomo of the city. Among the top pieces of the museum are the panels of the predella of an altarpiece that once adorned the high altar of this Duomo. The altarpiece, which is unfortunately lost, was made in 1337-1338 by Bernardo Daddi (1290-1348). The surviving predella is also by Daddi. It tells the story of the Belt in seven scenes. First we see the apostles around the Virgin’s empty tomb. She hands her Belt to Thomas the apostle, but this event has not been depicted (or perhaps it was lost). Thomas in his turn gives the Belt to a priest, which is the second scene. The third and fourth scenes are set in the twelfth century. A merchant from Prato named Michele Dagomari visits the city of Jerusalem as a pilgrim and marries a descendant of the priest. The bride’s mother gives him the Sacred Belt as a dowry.

Bride and groom subsequently return to Prato by ship (fifth scene). Home again, Michele Dagomari keeps the precious relic in a chest. To prevent theft he even sleeps on the chest, but every morning he finds himself waking up on the floor. In order to find out what goes on at night he orders two servants to hide behind the curtains. At night the servants see how two angels lift up Michele and put him down on the floor (sixth scene). The point is apparently that they will guard the Belt themselves. In the final scene we see Michele lying on his deathbed. He hands over the Belt to the priest of the pieve of Santo Stefano, the current Duomo. There must have been an eighth scene, but regretfully it has been lost. The current location of the Belt is the Cappella del Sacro Cingolo in the Duomo, which is decorated with beautiful frescoes painted by Agnolo Gaddi (ca. 1350-1396). The chapel has been replicated in the space behind the room in which Bernardo Daddi’s panels are kept. Agnolo Gaddi’s frescoes are projected onto the walls, but unfortunately the projectors malfunctioned when I visited the museum, so there was nothing to see. This was really a pity, as the Cappella del Sacro Cingolo is always kept locked and visitors can only admire the frescoes through the bars of the gates.

In a large hall we then find several late medieval panel paintings. Three works of Filippo Lippi (1406-1469) take centre-stage. Lippi was both a Carmelite friar and an accomplished painter. He worked in Prato for a long time, where he met a nun called Lucrezia Buti, who was associated with the convent of Santa Margherita in the city. Lucrezia often sat for him as either the Virgin Mary or some other female saint. She was for instance said to have been the sitter for Lippi’s Madonna della Cintola, one of the three works in the museum. This work was made between 1456 and 1466 for the aforementioned convent of Santa Margherita, and Lucrezia is reportedly the woman on the left, Saint Margaret of Antioch. The beautiful nun was not just Lippi’s model. In fact, Lippi fell in love with her and abducted her. From their relationship a son was born, Filippino Lippi (1457-1504), who became a famous painter too. The museum of the Palazzo Pretorio also possesses a work by Filippino, i.e. his Pala dell’Udienza.

The second work of Filippo Lippi, the one in the middle, is his Madonna del Ceppo. It comes from the Palazzo Datini, the palazzo owned by the aforementioned merchant Francesco di Marco Datini. Datini ran a trading company with offices in Avignon, Florence, Pisa, Genoa, Barcelona, Valencia and Palma de Mallorca. Upon his death in 1410 he left his entire fortune, with a value of about 100,000 florins, to a charity named the Ceppo dei poveri di Francesco di Marco (charity of the poor of Francesco di Marco).[1] The name of the charity explains the name of the painting, Madonna del Ceppo. In addition to the Madonna and Child and Saints Stephen and John the Baptist, Datini himself has also been depicted. He is the man in the red clothes with the red headdress. The four men kneeling in front of Datini are the men who commissioned the work from Filippo Lippi. Lippi painted the Madonna del Ceppo in 1452-1453. It has been one of the top pieces of the museum since 1858.

Filippo Lippi’s last work is a Nativity with Saints George and Vincent Ferrer. This panel painting dates from about 1465-1467. Vincent Ferrer (1350-1419) was a Dominican friar who was canonised in 1455. He can be identified by the text in the book that he is holding. Here we read the words TIMETE DEUM [ET DATE ILLI HONOREM] QUIA VENIT HORA IUDICII EIUS, which means “Fear God (and honour Him), for the hour of his judgment is nigh”. The painting comes from the church of San Domenico in Prato. Although the three works by Lippi are the obvious highlights of the large hall, it has several more beautiful paintings on display. Note for instance an altarpiece with a double predella by Giovanni da Milano (ca. 1320-1369) and a very colourful altarpiece by Lorenzo Monaco (ca. 1370-1424).

On the next floor we find more modern paintings. Here it is three altarpieces painted by Alessandro Allori (1535-1607) and Santi di Tito (1536-1603) that catch the eye. They come from the chapel of a palazzo in Peretola (known as the location of the airport of Florence). Upon her death in 2011, countess Angela Riblet Bargagli Petrucci left these works to the museum. Up one more floor we find the sculpture section, with a fine selection of works by the local sculptor Lorenzo Bartolini (1777-1850). A visit to the Palazzo Pretorio ends on the roof of the building, which offers a panoramic view of some of Prato’s landmarks. Apart from the aforementioned Duomo and church of San Domenico these are for instance the Castello dell’Imperatore and the church of Santa Maria delle Carceri.

Note

[1] A ceppo is actually a tree trunk. It was carved into a box into which alms could be dropped.