Siena, Palazzo delle Papesse to reopen after years of closure

by Redazione, published on 11/06/2024
Categories: Museums / Disclaimer

Palazzo delle Papesse, formerly a popular exhibition center for contemporary art, will reopen in Siena. It will be revived by Opera Laboratori. It will begin after the summer with an exhibition by Julio Le Parc.

Palace of the High Priestessformerly a popular exhibition venue for contemporary artis to reopen in Siena : the palace will be revived through Opera Laboratoriesa company specializing in museum management, which this morning signed with the Bank of Italy, through its president and CEO Beppe Costa, a contract to purchase the historic residence of Catherine and Laudomia, sisters of Pope Pius II, and for this reason known as Palazzo “delle Papesse.” The company has thus acquired the prestigious property through a group company and will work to reposition the building, among the most important in the city of Siena, at the center of Italian cultural institutions. In fact, the project for the reopening of the Palazzo is already ready, which will see immediately after the summer the opening of an exhibition, in collaboration with Galleria Continua, by Julio Le Parc, an Argentine sculptor and painter, a leading figure in kinetic art and Op Art, as well as a staunch defender of human rights. Julio Le Parc’s works are exhibited in major museums and galleries around the world, and his influence on contemporary art is internationally recognized.

Opera Laboratori, through its management, intends to chart, it makes known through a note, a path of cultural renaissance that aims to bring international art exhibitions and events to Siena in a building that has been a landmark for so many years. Instead, in 2025, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the first Sienese exhibition and thirty years after Hugo Pratt’s death, a major exhibition dedicated to the cartoonist and writer “father” of Corto Maltese will be organized. The exhibition, curated by Patrizia Zanotti and Patrick Amsellem, with a project by architect Giovanni Mezzedimi, will be produced by Opera Laboratori and will be the first stage of a journey to important Italian museum venues.

Also unveiled today is the new visual identityof Palazzo delle Papesse designed by Lorenzo De Ritaa longtime creative director (he has curated communication campaigns for international clients such as Nike, Adidas and Volvo) and his design team from The Phosphorescent Room, a Center for Imagination Studies. Three words were chosen to represent the Palace’s identity: vision, openness and plurality. The spokesperson for this word is the most illustrious guest who ever crossed the threshold of the Palazzo’s door: Galileo Galilei. Palazzo delle Papesse, through its exhibitions, will offer new “visions” and ways of seeing art and culture, to be looked at with new eyes, inspired by a phrase by Galileo Galilei: “eyes that want to see and believe what they see. ..” The word “openness” describes the soul of the Palace: there is still the open-mindedness of Galileo and his way of interpreting science, but there is also that of Pius II’s sister, Caterina Piccolomini. A woman who, going against the norms and customs of her time, built and organized the building that will soon be returned to the public. Just as Caterina was a woman of open-mindedness, so the Palazzo delle Papesse is to become, in Opera’s intentions, a symbol of open-mindedness, inclusive and participatory, where artists can “go beyond and imagine cities that do not exist on maps , where no human being is a stranger” (Pope Francis, speech to artists on the occasion of the Venice Biennale). Finally, “Plurality” is in the name of the Palace, in the number of crescent moons of the Piccolomini symbol, in the number of inhabitants and functions that have followed one another over time, but also in the ability to dialogue with the different institutions of the city and the territory. A project that interweaves the “crescents” of the Piccolomini with the eyes of Galileo to give many glimpses of Future.

“The intuition,” comments Beppe Costa, “shared with Daniele Petrucci, former managing director, and Stefano Di Bello, chief operating officer of Opera Laboratori, not only represents a great step for our company, but is an investment made for the world of cultures. Palazzo delle Papesse will dialogue with all Italian and international cultural institutions and invite its guests to have a glimpse of the Future.”

The willingness to collaborate was immediately picked up by the mayor of Siena, Nicoletta Fabio, who said in a note, “A great opportunity for the city, I am happy that this news arrives on the same day that we presented the cultural programming of Santa Maria della Scala. A new, dynamic and constructive lifeblood is forming in this city, thanks to the synergy between all the actors involved. With Opera Laboratori we have established an excellent relationship of collaboration and mutual respect from the very beginning, and I believe that the path laid out is the right one.”

Palace of the High Priestess

The Piccolomini Palace is called “delle Papesse” because it was commissioned by the sisters of Pius II. Elected pope, Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini stopped in Siena at least three times during his six years as pope, and two stays, between 1459 and 1460, were particularly long. During these visits, Pius II initiated the design of a number of residences that would be representative for the family, such as the two mighty palaces in Via di Città and Banchi di Sotto, as well as a Loggia and a funerary chapel, symbols of Aeneas Silvio’s ambitious dynastic policy. The first record of architectural commissions concerns, in 1459, precisely the residence of her sister Caterina, widow of Bartolomeo Guglielmi, who, with her brother’s election to the papal throne, had the opportunity to regain her surname of origin. Of the family ancestry bears witness to the “patronymic” of the palace known as “delle Papesse,” partly inspired by the Medici palace on Via Larga in Florence, with its ashlar and large round-arched portals on the ground floor, while the mullioned windows with pointed arches still remain partly related to the Sienese Gothic style. The attribution of the design, traditionally assigned to Bernardo Rossellino, the architect of the Piccolomini in Pienza, is problematic and not fully resolved. Rather, Antonio Federighi, one of the most representative sculptors and architects of the Sienese Renaissance, who, at the very least, must have been a superintendent of the work, is mentioned in the documents relating to the construction of the building, which lasted for about three decades.

A descendant of the Piccolomini family, Archbishop Ascanio, hosted Galileo Galilei in Palazzo delle Papesse after he was condemned by the Holy Office in 1633. During his stay in Siena, the scientist devoted himself to the composition of Discourses and mathematical demonstrations around two new sciences, published in Holland in 1638 to escape censure by the Inquisition Tribunal. This is a text in which he refined his studies on the principles of mechanics useful later to Newton in formulating his law of universal gravitation. Mathematician Theophilus Gallaccini recalls in his writings Galileo’s six observations of the moon made from the Palace lodge in August. Making use of the telescope, the great scientist discovered that this satellite was neither perfect nor spherical as was believed, but studded on the surface with mountains and craters.

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