To mark the 50th anniversary of the Abbey’s restoration (1967-2017), the conference will address the phenomenon of legal exportation and reinstallation of monumental
complexes and oversized artworks in the first half of the 20th century. The Abbey’s portal, which arrived in the United States in 1936 and stands today at the entrance of the medieval collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, will serve as the starting point to examine the circumstances around the exportation of works from Italy until the Second World War.
The specific focus will be monumental complexes and large works – rather than easily movable objects – which have been legally exported in peacetime.
In addition to the case of San Gemini, the conference aims to promote an interdisciplinary dialogue on the significance of an artwork’s context and on the social, legal and intellectual connotations of its removal. Thus, we encourage proposals that consider more than one case in the broader context of the phenomenon. The conference’s program can be found below.
Program
Abbey of San Nicolò, Umbria, Italy
Contact Francesco Gangemi (gangemi@biblhertz.it) for more information.
Friday, 8 June 2018 | 2:30 – 6:30pm
Welcome
Leda Cardillo Violati and Valeria Violati | Association Promotion of Historical Heritage San Gemini Onlus
Leonardo Grimani | Mayor of San Gemini
Tanja Michalsky | Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History, Rome
Introduction
Francesco Gangemi | Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, Max-Planck-Institut
The dossier San Gemini
Moderator: Tanja Michalsky
Andrea Paribeni | University of Urbino “Carlo Bo”
A long goodbye. The sale of the San Nicolò portal in San Gemini through the documentation archive
Griffith Mann | The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The San Gemini Portal and The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Break
Behind the alienation: the cultural context of institutions and market
Moderator : Gail Feigenbaum | The Getty Research Institute
Joanna Smalcerz | Universität Bern
Who Has the Right to Art? The Italian Art Debate on Export Policy and the Lobby of the Association of Art Dealers
Maria Grazia Fachechi | University of Urbino “Carlo Bo”
Cristiano Giometti | University of Florence
“To the Museum and Back”: destroyed contexts, contexts (virtually) rebuilt
Giuseppe Zanichelli | University of Salerno
Middle Ages and antiquarian market in Campania between the wars
Aperitivo
Saturday, 9 June 2018 | 10:00am – 1:00pm
Across the Atlantic: two cases in the mirror (I)
Moderator: Robert Maxwell | The Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
Susanne Edma Chadwell | University of Melbourne
The Transatlantic Movement of Medieval Monuments from Europe to New York: A Consideration of the Cloisters and the Doorway of San Leonardo in the frigid
Martina Lerda | Pisa
The world’s San Leonardo in frigid: a case study in the history of the dispersion of the Italian monuments
Break
Across the Atlantic: two cases the mirror (II)
Moderato: Duccio K. Marignoli | Foundation Marignoli Montecorona, Spoleto
Eleanor Tosti | Sapienza University of Rome
From the church of Santo Stefano Vecchio in Fiano Romano at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Searches of a medieval ciborium
Alison Perchuk | California State University Channel Islands
From Santa Sabina in Forest Lawn and Fiano Romano in New York: the luck of tabernacles “medieval” Italians in America
2:30pm – 6:30pm
Monumental Disposals in Central Italy (I)
Moderator: Enrica Blacks Lusanna | University of Perugia
Paola Mercurelli Wages | Museum of Palazzo Ducale, Gubbio
The Ducal Palace in Gubbio between divestitures, antique events and regulatory silence
Giordana Benazzi | Perugia
The Study of Gubbio in the contradictions of the fascist period: racial laws and laws protecting
Saverio Ricci | San Gemini
The sale of the wooden eaves of Palazzo Racani – Arroni in Spoleto and the interest spread for large wooden furniture in the Italy of old umbertina
Break
Monumental Disposals in Central Italy (II)
Moderator and discusses Fabio Isman | Rome
Simone Salvatore | Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa
“The rubble of the Magnificent”: The Pinturicchio Palazzo Petrucci ceiling Siena at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art
Marco Pierini | National Gallery of Umbria, Perugia
“These statues have no artistic value”. The sale to the Brompton Oratory in London apostles sculpted by Giuseppe Mazzuoli for the Cathedral of Siena
End conference Reflections
Orietta Rossi Pinelli | Sapienza University of Rome
talks to Bruno Toscano | Roma Tre University
San Gemini, Abbey of San Nicolò, Italy, 8-9 June 2018
Medieval Art Research 