Art Of The Day Weekly
#373 - from 29 January 2015 to 4 February 2015
Lorenzo Lotto, Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery, ca 1540, oil on canvas, 105 x 132 cm. Museo-Antico Tesoro della Santa Casa, Loreto.
Treasures from Loreto
ROME – Loreto holds the Virgin’s Home, which following a miraculous flight from the Holy Land and a stopover in Dalmatia landed on the Adriatic coast. Together with Lourdes and Fatima, this is one of the most visited sanctuaries of Christianity. A wealthy though unknown artistic patrimony was created through religious patronage. In order to rearrange the collections the Museum Treasure is temporarily closed which should help the site enlarge its public beyond the circles of devotees. The star of the event is of course Lorenzo Lotto, the enigmatic painter of the XVIth century, who spent his last years and created his last works at Loreto. Various paintings of Saints, among them Roch, Sebastian and Christopher, show the intensity of his own vocation. A Portrait of a young man is a great contrast with the rest. Maybe it’s a self-portrait? Other pious paintings on the iconography of the Santa Casa, signed by Pomarancio or Guido Reni, and liturgical silverware, of which the famous Crucifix of Giambologna, complete the ensemble.
• Lorenzo Lotto e i tesori artistici di Loreto at Castel Sant’Angelo, from February to 3 May 2015.