Diocesan Museum

The Diocesan Museum is one of the most important in Tuscany for the richness of the works it exibits, among which are some masterpieces of the 14th and 15th-century Italian painting, of the goldsmith’s art and of the textile art. Founded in 1945, the museum was given a new arrangement in 1986. It is set in the old church of Gesù’s rooms, in the below Oratory, that once was the seat of the lay company of Buon Gesù and in nearby rooms. Visiting the Diocesean Museum one can discover a most precious canvasses and tablets’ collection going from the 13th to the 19th century, along with detached frescos, sculptures and liturgical fittings coming from the churches of Cortona and from its old diocese.

The decorations and the furnishing of the room wherein the works are placed are integral parts of the museum exibition: in the higher Church one can admire the splendid coffered wooden roof carved in 1536 by the Cortonese Michelangelo Leggi called il Mezzanotte; the lower Oratory still preserves an important cycle of frescos with Scenes of sacrifies of the Old Testament painted by Cristoforo Gherardi on a Vasari’s project (1555). Memorable among the painting masterpieces of the Museum is the magnificent Annunciation (1433-34) painted by Beato Angelico for the church of S.Domenico during his stay in the Dominican convent of Cortona, where he lived till 1438. The exquisite chromatic values and the brightness of the colours, the elegance of the figures and the skillful prespective representation of space have part in creating an athmosphere of intense and profound meditation typical of the Angelico’s works, whose tryptyc with Madonna with Child and Saints (1436-37), painted for same church, is also preserved in the museum. As much important are two works by Pietro Lorenzetti (a painted Crucifix and a Madonna in the throne with child and Angels, 1315-20), a tryptyc by Sassetta (about 1435) and the big altar-piece with the Assunta by Bartolomeo della Gatta (1470-75), a fascinating painting for its colours and its descriptive richness, a complex synthesis between Piero della Francesca’s spatial representation, the Florentine art and the Flemish painting. Of peculiar interest is the section dedicated to the Cortonese painter Luca Signorelli as it contains some important works of his maturity, when he held a prolific workshop in Cortona (1512-23), and the famous Deposition for the Sanctuary of S.Margherita (1502). With regard to the sculpure it is worthy mentioning the presence of a famous Roman sarcophagus with the Struggle of Dionisus and the Amazons, celebrated since the 15th century, that lead Donatello and Brunelleschi to make a journey from Florence to Cortona and admire it. In the section extraordinarily full of liturgical fittings there are the precious Reliquiary Vagnucci, masterpiece of the goldsmith Giusto da Firenze, crowned by a 15th-century French workmanship’s statuette and the 16th-century Passerini Tapestry, belonged to the famous Cortonese cardinal Silvio Passerini, weaved in Florence and embroidered on a cartoon by Andrea del Sarto and Raffaellino del Garbo.
 

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