The monumental complex of the Pilotta in Parma enriches its collection with a work by Giorgio Gandini del Grano (Parma, 1500? – May 1538): l’Allegoria della città di Parma.
The panel, datable to 1530-1535, purchased thanks to the funds of the General Directorate of Museums by the Carlo Orsi Gallery in Milan, will be the protagonist, together with an ancient copy (donated by Carlo Orsi himself), of a mini dossier exhibition , scheduled from 7 December 2024 to 29 January 2025 , in an ideal dialogue with three other paintings of his exhibited in the Mannerism wing of the National Gallery.
“The collections of the Pilotta Monumental Complex – characterized by valuable archaeological and book assets that combine the variety and richness of Parma’s artistic production, the patronage and the Farnese collections – today welcome a new masterpiece” declared Massimo Osanna, General Director of the Museums. L’Allegoria della città di Parma by Giorgio Gandini Del Grano arrives at the Museum thanks to an initiative strongly supported by the General Directorate of Museums, which wanted to reward a proposal formulated by the Pilotta that appeared philologically impeccable and of great prestige for the National Museum System. Traced to a private collection, the work immediately appeared to be of great importance and created in a golden phase of Parma’s art, by Gandini, a petit-maître who certainly deserves renewed consideration in studies, especially for the role he played in the sixteenth-century artistic events of the area”.
“It is a great satisfaction – comments Stefano L’Occaso, director of the Monumental Complex of the Pilotta – to have secured for the Museum’s collections a painting of this importance for the city. My thanks go to the Galleria Carlo Orsi, to the commitment of the Scientific Committee and above all to the General Directorate of Museums, for their fundamental support. It is an important acquisition for the Pilotta and for the entire city, symbolically gathered in a vast embrace inside the small but very precious panel by Gandini”.
Giorgio Gandini del Grano (Parma, ca. 1500 –1538)
Giorgio Gandini del Grano is a still rather mysterious artist from Parma. His catalogue of paintings is limited to just eight works, two altarpieces and six small-format paintings, while a vast production of drawings of the highest quality can be attributed to him. A pupil and collaborator of Correggio, Gandini created works of great compositional complexity, close to Nordic culture and the stimuli of Mannerism. The artist must also have been identified as an ideal heir of Correggio himself, so much so that upon the death of the master, in 1534, Giorgio was asked to decorate the apse and presbytery of the city cathedral: an undertaking that had not yet been started upon Gandini’s death in 1538.
L’Allegoria della città di Parma ( 1530-1535)
The work, once attributed to Correggio due to the evident stylistic similarities and the probable professional relationship between the two, is composed of sixteen figures, each different from the other in posture, movement and gestures, as is in the style of Gandini del Grano, who made dynamism and crowded scenes his distinctive feature. The apparently casual position of the characters, in reality a deliberately sought-after compositional asymmetry, accentuates the chaotic richness of his painting.
Putting the characters in order and analyzing them, Parma is represented by the kneeling female figure, with the shield and weapons at her feet, while she is presented to the Virgin with the Child by the two protectors of the city: Saint Hilary, the bishop with the pastoral staff, and Saint Thomas, from behind and kneeling.
At the bottom right, still kneeling, the blessed Bernardino da Feltre, recognizable by the coat of arms of the Monte di Pietà; higher up, from the left, Saint Rocco (with the pilgrim’s shell), Saint Elizabeth with the infant Saint John the Baptist, the white-veiled head representing the University of Parma, Saint Catherine of Alexandria and, even higher up, Saint Sebastian with arrows in his hand.
The work represents perhaps the pinnacle of the painter’s production, documented in Parma during the fourth decade of the 16th century and considered, together with Francesco Maria Rondani and Michelangelo Anselmi, among the protagonists of the so-called “School of Parma”, that is, those painters considered followers of Correggio and Parmigianino. The acquisition is therefore particularly significant, both for the rarity of Gandini’s works and for the iconography, so closely linked to the city of Parma.
Gallery
