Novena

The Museo Civico Luigi Varoli presents NOVENA, an exhibition that revolves around the acquisition, important and identifying, by the Municipality of Cotignola, of an oil painting of great expressive intensity depicting a Christ carrying the cross made by Francesco and Bernardino Zaganelli. The work comes from a private collection in Bologna and can be admired in all its splendor, after the restoration carried out by Michele Pagani, from Saturday 11 December 2021 to 6 March 2022 at Palazzo Sforza, together with two other versions of the same. subject made by Zaganelli themselves and the precious interventions of two contemporary artists: Franco Pozzi, who will exhibit five pencil drawings, and Nicola Samorì, who will present a painting made in oil.

The exhibition was born from an idea of the Councilor for Culture Federico Settembrini and is curated by Raffaella Zama, expert of Cotignolese Zaganelli painters and their pupil Girolamo Marchesi, as well as author of the respective monographs. The title, NOVENA, suggested by Franco Pozzi, in addition to alluding to a practice of prayer and meditation, plays on the recursion of the number nine, also present in the exhibition: nine known versions of Christ carrying the cross and nine works on display: three the versions of the Christ of the Zaganelli, five drawings by Pozzi, one the painting by Samorì.

NOVENA is an extraordinary occasion to celebrate two highly appreciated figures, "the most fragrant flower" - as Roberto Longhi wrote - of painting in Romagna between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: Francesco and Bernardino Zaganelli. It also contains the story of an expected return: that of the two painter brothers in Cotignola, their country of origin. In this context, the painting also becomes a symbol, a starting point and a central presence, of the future section of the Varoli Museum dedicated to the Sforza and his Renaissance painters.

The canvas depicts Christ during the ascent to Calvary through an iconography very much in vogue in the first decade of the sixteenth century: the frame tightens on the face of Christ, eliminating the outline and background details, to focus on the most pathetic and moving aspects, and invite to the contemplation of his sacrifice.