Piazza Matteotti, on the right the Palazzo Oliva.
One of the most important museums in Sassoferrato rather oddly does not use the word “museum” in its name. The Civica Raccolta d’Arte is, apparently, first and foremost a raccolta or collection. The predominantly religious works in the collection date from the fifteenth to late eighteenth centuries and come from churches, convents and private collections in and around Sassoferrato. The museum is housed in the Palazzo Oliva on the Piazza Matteotti, which was built in the fifteenth century by Alessandro Oliva (1407-1463), a cardinal who was himself from Sassoferrato. The cardinal is one of the four Great Men from Sassoferrato that we encounter in one of the very few secular works in the museum. In this work from ca. 1550, which originally hung in the adjacent Palazzo Comunale and was painted by the mysterious Maestro di San Pietro, he is the second man from the left, recognisable by his red cardinal’s hat. The other celebrities of the panel painting are the humanist Niccolò Perotti (1429-1480), the lawyer Bartolus (1313-1357) and the physician Gianlorenzo Chirurghi. The latter is regretfully not famous enough to have his own page on Wikipedia.
The first interesting religious work that I saw, was a panel painting from 1478 featuring four saints. From left to right we see Saint Antonius of Padova, Saint Sebastian, Saint Roche and lastly Saint Domninus of Fidenza, who has a dog’s head as his attribute. The work is attributed to the Maestro di Collamata and is more interesting than it is beautiful. Of better quality are the works of the local painter Pietro Paolo Agabiti (ca. 1470-1540). His Madonna and Child with two bishops is very worn, but fortunately his Pietà from ca. 1518-1520, which comes from a Benedictine convent, is in more satisfactory condition. The saints of the canvas are Saint Nicholas of Tolentino, Saint Sebastian, the Franciscan inquisitor Giacomo della Marca (ca. 1391-1476)[1] and a female saint who is possibly Saint Catherine of Alexandria. In the background a hilltop town is visible, perhaps Sassoferrato itself. The other famous painter from Sassoferrato is of course the man who was known as Il Sassoferrato. His real name was Giovanni Battista Salvi (1609-1685) and he had a knack for painting Madonnas. The museum possesses a number of works painted by him.
Polyptych by the Maestro di Collamato.
Madonna and Child with two bishops – Pietro Paolo Agabiti.
Piazza Matteotti, on the left the Palazzo dei Priori.
The second raccolta in Sassoferrato is the Raccolta Perottiana, which can be found in the Palazzo dei Priori from 1355. This collection is composed of items from the private collection of the aforementioned Niccolò Perotti. As a young man Perotti was appointed secretary to the Greek-born cardinal Basilios Bessarion (ca. 1403-1472). Bessarion was a member of the Greek delegation that had travelled to Italy in 1438 to participate in the Council of Ferrara and the subsequent Council of Florence. The main purpose of the councils was to bring about a reconciliation between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. They led to a Decree of Unity in 1439, which was however rejected in Constantinople. Bessarion opted to stay in Italy. He renounced his Orthodox faith, converted to Catholicism and was ultimately created a cardinal. The cardinal was known as a great scholar and his house in Rome – which is still there – became a centre of knowledge. Through his contacts and travels with Bessarion, Niccolò Perotti was able to build up a very nice collection of religious objects from both East and West, which he left to his hometown upon his death.
The most prized possession of the Raccolta Perottiana is a portable icon of the soldier saint Demetrius of Thessaloniki. The icon is a mosaic made of minuscule tesserae that dates from the end of the fourteenth century. Unfortunately it is difficult to take a picture of the icon; for obvious reasons it is kept behind glass and the light in the museum is far from ideal. Even better than the icon is a reliquary and diptych, also from the fourteenth century. The diptych of gilded wood is French, while the ivory decorations with scenes from the life of Jesus come from a Roman studio and are dated to ca. 1320-1340.
Note
[1] Beatified in 1624 and canonised in 1726.