Dr. Agnese Benedetti, Bagni di Lucca’s councillor for cultural affairs, presented her book on Baldassare di Biagio’s (c.1434-1484) glorious Benabbio Triptych, yesterday at the church in our comune of Bagni di Lucca which commissioned it almost six hundred years ago: Santa Maria Assunta in Benabbio..

Gianfranco Pierotti opened the presentation and after mayor Paolo Michelini’s greetings Professor Sonia Maffei introduced the research work done by her pupil Agnese Benedetti who illustrated her points magisterially with excellent slides.

Monsignor Michelangelo Giannotti spoke with affection about the effort and work of Don Mario Tolomei, parish priest for over fifty years in Benabbio to preserve this masterpiece. and bring it to wider attention.

Although also named ‘da Firenze’, Baldassare Da Biagio was born in Lucca and the name refers to his being influenced by Florentine artistic trends. He is in every respect a transitional painter bridging two artistic epochs: gothic and renaissance.

A visit to the excellently arranged ecclesiastical museum, which opened in 2009, followed and a plaque in memory of Don Mario Tolomei was unveiled

Delicious refreshments made by the village association concluded the memorable event.

Dr. Agnese (a Gen Z) has her fascinating book published by Maria Pacini Fazzi, priced at €15. In it she includes the following major points.

A. The triptych’s inestimable artistic worth was first brought to the attention of a wider public in the nineteenth century by English travellers to Bagni di Lucca. Before that time it was not especially regarded.

B. The triptych was luckily preserved intact and in its original location by a law of 1913 which recognized it (and other ‘minor’ masterpieces tucked away in village churches) as culturally valuable. Unfortunately this was at a time when many altar pieces were dismembered and their parts sold, often illegally, in the international art market. To remove a painting from the environment for which it was designed and then cut it up is a cultural crime of the utmost severity. The world’s art museums are sadly filled with sections of paintings which should have been part of a larger whole. Automatically their true value has been irrevocably diminished.

C. The triptych was specially commissioned by the Benabbio congregation to beautify their church of Santa Maria Assunta at a time when the Romanesque building was undergoing much needed restoration. It was the congregation who specified precisely what it wanted and arranged not only payment to the artist but also a guarantee pact whereby Baldassare would have to correct the painting free of charge if the congregation found anything wrong with it. All these facts came out through the extraordinary find in 1980 of documents relating to the triptych detailing its sale transaction.

D. As a result of Benabbio’s congregational requirements the triptych strides across two artistic periods. The formal design, the frame partitioning (by fellow artist and sculptor Matteo Civitali) and the extensive use of a gold background reflect international gothic aesthetics. The figures within this framework, however, are directly influenced by the Florentine renaissance as particularly exemplified in the works of Filippo Lippi and his school. The triptych is, therefore, a fascinatingly composite work standing between two artistic worlds rather like such structures as St Paul’s Cathedral which has a gothic floor layout on which a renaissance-styled structure is imposed. In this respect it must be remembered that the renaissance reached Lucca over fifty years after it was born in Florence and arrived even later in the city’s surrounding rural districts. The area was thus still living with antiquated artistic trends at the time of the triptych’s commissioning.

To come to Italy and imagine that by visiting art museums like Uffizi and Brera one has seen the best is to misread reality. Their collections are indeed wonderful but they are just collections torn away from their original ambiences. To enjoy Italian art in the environment for which it was designed is another matter. Lucky for Italy that it has so many frescoes which can only with the greatest difficulty be removed from their locations. With regard to panel paintings the magnificent Benabbio Triptych is a prime example of how all paintings should be shown in the locations for they were created if they are to fully display their artistic significance and beauty