La Spezia inaugurates the new exhibition at the Amedeo Lia Civic Museum

La Spezia inaugurates the new exhibition at the Amedeo Lia Civic Museum

La Spezia, al Amedeo Lia Civic Museum inaugurates, Friday 15 December at 17.00 pm, the exhibition on the nativity strongly supported by the Peracchini Administration on the occasion of Christmas “Angels long to gaze. The Nativity and the Adoration of the Shepherds and the Magi" edited by Andrea Marmori.

“After the great success of the Pieter Brueghel the Younger exhibition. The Crucifixion of Castelnuovo Magra. Restoration and comparisons – declares the Mayor of La Spezia Pierluigi Peracchini – the Amedeo Lia Civic Museum is ready for a new major exhibition which we are sure will attract a large audience. An exceptional opportunity to delve into the enormous significance of the birth of Jesus and the Adoration of the Shepherds and the Magi through prestigious masterpieces in dialogue with the permanent collection of the Lia Museum which, after the renewed loan agreement with the Lia family of the works present, in fact, has started a new course with a view to valorisation at a national and international level.”

The exhibition, whose title takes up the words of the First Letter of Peter of the New Testament, intends to focus on the salient moments of the coming of Christ, preceded by Advent, expressed through the representation of the Nativity and the Adorations of the shepherds and the wise men. Thanks to the sequence of paintings selected for the exhibition, in dialogue with the figurative texts of the permanent collection, i three moments of the Birth, the Adoration of the shepherds and finally the Adoration of the Magi they illustrate the revelation to the world of salvation, an anticipation of the Redemption of humanity. The salvific message that Christ brings with him, in fact, is made explicit through an increasingly extensive revelation, which reaches the Magi from the shepherds, in an ideal amplification of the consequences of the birth of the Child.

“This is the sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger” (Luke 2,12): if in fact the Adoration of the Shepherds illustrates the promise of the kingdom of God addressed primarily to the humblest category of society, where the sudden and spontaneous homage of the people is illustrated in a certainly dialectical yet almost equal relationship with the Holy Family, another discussion applies to the Adoration of the Magi, guided by the glow of the star that leads them to the presence of the Child. The detection of the Epiphany is precisely the light: “we saw his star rise” (Matthew, 2,2), is said in the Gospel of Matthew, to tell, in advance, the path necessary to reach the kingdom of light brought by Christ into the world. With the donation developed by the Magi, the Child is recognized as king, and the narrative development that reaches the Redemption has the completion of its first narrative phase.

In this sense, the exhibition, set up during the Christmas period, aims to be an opportunity to explore these themes, which are fundamental for the Christian West, whose iconographic declination demonstrates their permanence in the history of art.
The exhibition will be open to visitors until March 24, 2024.
Works on display.

• Barnaba da Modena, Annunciation to the shepherds, 43,3×30,2 cm, panel, Civic Museums of Ancient Art, Bologna
• Pellegrino Tibaldi, Adoration of the Shepherds, oil on canvas, 162×107 cm National Gallery, Parma
• Andrea Previtali, Nativity, 132×215 cm, oil on canvas, Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice
• Francesco Fontebasso, Adoration of the Magi, oil on canvas, 133,4×81,3 cm Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice
• Alessandro Bonvicino known as Moretto, Nativity, oil on canvas, 102,1×91,9×5 cm Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice
• Pietro Perugino, Adoration of the Magi, 55×44 cm, oil on panel, National Gallery of Palazzo Spinola, Genoa
• Gioacchino Assereto, Adoration of the Shepherds, cc 57×41 cm, oil on copper, National Gallery of Palazzo Spinola, Genoa
• Bartolomeo Biscaino, Adoration of the Magi, 69×46 cm National Gallery of Palazzo Spinola, Genoa
• Bernardo Strozzi, Adoration of the Shepherds, 61×49 cm (cc 77×60 cm), oil on canvas, private collection, Genoa
• Antonio Travi, Adoration of the Shepherds, 75×56 cm (cc 92×72 cm), oil on canvas, private collection, Genoa

Info.

• Amedeo Lia Civic Museum
• Via Prione, 234
• Tel. 0187 727220
• e-mail museolia@comune.sp.it