One year ago the last inspection by the Ministry. Today the wait continues (which has been going on for about 30 years) to find out what will be the fate of the masterpiece that Piero della Francesca dedicated to his mother. Meanwhile, the famous fresco depicting the “Madonna del Parto” remains in the display case set up in via della Reglia, in Monterchi, where every year it is admired by thousands of visitors. Around 23 thousand in 2023, while before the pandemic the tickets sold reached 25 thousand. Exorbitant numbers for the small town, nestled between Tuscany and Umbria, which has just over 1700 inhabitants. But a decision could be made soon. Or at least the residents and the administration hope so.
In fact, a new meeting between the main players is scheduled for May: the Municipality, the Superintendence and the Ministry. “The hope is that the work will remain in the current museum”, says the mayor Alfredo Romanelli, as he prepares to run his third election campaign. In reality, after the inspection on 27 March 2023, when at the request of the mayor himself, Emanuele Merlino, head of the technical secretariat of the minister Gennaro Sangiuliano and Giorgio Brugnoni, a ministerial official, arrived in Monterchi, there were unofficial meetings. According to what has been leaked, the ministry would plead the cause of the Municipality, also because the “envoys” took note of the presence of a real civic museum, with a route for tourists, which is bringing many visitors even to the otherwise depopulated historic centre.
Relocation hypothesis
But what are the hypotheses for the location? As mentioned, the municipal administration would like to keep the masterpiece inside the former elementary school (building on the slopes of the historic center) where it was placed in 1992 and kept in a special case that guarantees its conservation. The Council of State, however, expressed itself differently. According to the judges, the fresco is “inseparable from the first location”. However, today it practically no longer exists. The building where the fresco was created, the church of Santa Maria Momentana, has been semi-demolished and rebuilt twice in three centuries. This implies that, in the event of moving, the fresco would return to its original area, but to a smaller structure (a cemetery chapel) that has been rebuilt. In particular, the interventions dating back to the years 1955-1956 changed the original east-west orientation of the building, thus closing the ancient eighteenth-century entrance to the church and opening a new one on the southern side. Consequently, the fresco from the eastern wall was moved to the one facing north: “A position – say the detractors of the return to the original church – far from the light conditions in which it was frescoed by Piero della Francesca”.
The Diocese of Arezzo, Cortona and Sansepolcro also played a role in the dispute, asking out loud for a location that could allow worship. In April 2009, i.e. 15 years ago, an alternative solution was proposed: that of placing it in the church of San Benedetto, which is located right in front of the building where the fresco is currently located. But if the municipality and the diocese reached an agreement, there was no approval from the Superintendency which had already assessed this solution as inadequate 10 years earlier due to the excessive architectural dimensions (considered inconsistent with the fresco) and the precarious state of the structure. .
The political world takes sides
In recent years, however, the solution advocated by the Municipality has found the approval of the local political world. Starting from the President of the Region Eugenio Giani, who despite belonging to a completely different political party publicly declared that the move would have been a mistake: “It is true – he declared – that the Madonna of childbirth has been stabilized in a different place from the original location but it is still a place that, over the years, has acquired a progressive identity linked to this work, with a good response from tourist flows and the economic system of Monterchi. I believe that moving it from its current location is wrong”.
Last year even the art critic, undersecretary of the ministry at the time Vittorio Sgarbi (who knows Monterchi and has visited La Madonna del Parto many times) considered the current location the best. “While historical and sentimental reasons make the relocation to the original site suggestive – he explained -, the simple elaboration of a perfect 3D reproduction (in the genre of “Factum Arte” products) would close the question, not through a Solomonic solution: the reasons prevailing conservation standards and the quality of the exhibition achieved in the current location are unsurpassed”. However, the Superintendence would have a proposal to show to the Ministry, which could change the fate of the work. A project that could be presented directly to the Ministry during the long-awaited meeting in May. Hoping that, electoral campaign permitting, it doesn’t slip again.
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