NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER

Travel

QUEST
Wilderness
Seeds of new beginnings
found in 10-day desert stay
Page 6a
NOVEMBER 20-DECEMBER 3, 2015

NCRonline.org

Photos by Newscom/EPA/Maurizio DeglInnocenti

A woman looks at the Gates of Paradise, 15th-century bronze doors

by Lorenzo Ghiberti.

STARSTRUCK

A visitor takes a photo in the gallery of the bell tower in the redesigned Museo dellOpera del Duomo in Florence, Italy, on Oct 21.

Luminaries dialogue in Florences redesigned cathedral museum

By MENACHEM WECKER

FLORENCE, ITALY . Like many other halls of

fame, the collection of Florences cathedral museum, the Museo dellOpera
del Duomo, assembles such staggering
luminary power that its hard not to
walk through the building starstruck,
with the aesthetic v ersion of a brain
freeze headache from consuming too
much ice cream too quickly.
Here, near the entry, are Lorenzo
Ghibertis renowned bronze Gates of
Paradise the actual 1425-52, nearly
5,000-pound doors that had adorned
the Baptistery, opposite the Duomo,
until they were replaced (for safekeeping) by copies.
Around a corner, one discovers
Michelangelos Piet, the artists
penultimate work, which he sought
to destroy, having intended the highly
personal sculpture to adorn his own
tomb. Italian painter Vasari reported
that Michelangelo sculpted it at night
by the light of a single candle, and
on one such occasion, when he saw
Vasari, Michelangelo extinguished the
candle, so the former wouldnt get a

glimpse of the sculpture.

En route, one is liable to lose ones
breath over any number of Donatello
sculptures, perhaps most notably
Penitent Magdalene (1454-55), which
is arranged along one sightline with
the Piet, and another with an octagonal chapel with lavish reliquaries. Behind her is a crucifixion on the wall.
She is, after all, praying; what better
props and inspirations to surround
oneself with than the cross, a piet,
and saintly remains?
Sightlines upon which renowned
artworks dialogue with predecessors
is the stuff of which Florence has
been made for centuries. The new
museum, which reopened to the public
Oct. 29 following a two-and-a-half-year
redesign and expansion (which more
than doubled its floor space), inserts
itself into that historic framework.
Somewhere in between the dizzying
array of monumental works in the
museums collection blending together, one becomes aware of the complexity of the enterprise, and its layering.
The cornerstone of the Cathedral
of Santa Maria del Fiore (Virgin

of the Flower) was laid in 1296, and

the building, designed by Arnolfo di
Cambio, was completed in the 15th
century, although only one-third of
Cambios design was actually realized.

They wanted to be spectacular.

To take peoples breath away.
Msgr. Timothy Verdon
(Chalk the nearly two-century delay
up to Italian bureaucracy, financial
hurdles, and changes in governmental
structures.)
The cathedrals faade, with sculptures of Mary and of the citys patron
saints, was intended to contrast the
ideal population (rendered in stone)
with Florences real population, the
church triumphant with the church
militant, explains Msgr. Timothy Verdon, director of the museum.
The so-called Madonna With the
Glass Eyes, which appears prominently at eye level and (in copy) above
on the modeled faade (as well as in

copy on the actual Duomo faade)

also stresses the significance of the
real and ideal. Di Cambio stressed the
negative space between Marys arm
and Roman toga to impress upon viewers that she has a physical, three-dimensional body, according to Verdon.
If Christ is true God, hes also
true man. So he has to be born from
true woman with a body. Thats the
whole story, he said. And the glass
eyes typical in polychrome wood
sculptures, but quite rare in white
marble would have caught the light
at certain times of day and gleamed.
The idea of these living eyes in the
eternal stone is very strange, Verdon
said. Its almost frightening in a way.
The sculptures cannot but have
reminded people that the New Testament tells believers that they are
living stones aligned with the cornerstone, who is Christ, to create a
new structure, he added. To see the
saints as these stone personalities said
something to Florentines.
Heres where it gets complicated.
The actual stone sculptures, which
Continued on Page 2a

2a NOVEMBER 20-DECEMBER 3, 2015

NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER

TRAVEL

Newscom/New Press Photo/Splash News

Msgr. Timothy Verdon

Newscom/New Press Photo/Splash News

Members of the press are shown the new layout of the Museo dellOpera del Duomo in Florence, Italy, on Oct. 21. The
cathedral museum reopened to the public Oct. 29.

FLORENCE: I LIKE TO PUT THINGS IN PEOPLES WAYS

Continued from Page 1a

were intended to represent the

heavenly population, were moved to
the museum for their protection, and
copies were placed on the faade. So
the cathedral portal now has copies
imitating copies of saints.
The new museum, which builds
upon a theater that the cathedral foundation reacquired in 1998 (having sold
it in 1778), has a great hall of sufficient
size to recreate one-third of di Cambios faade design.
In that tremendous space which
Verdon said is Florences largest
museum room some of the actual
sculptures are displayed at eye level for
visitors to see, while copies have been
inserted in their appropriate spaces on
the faade, where viewers can view the
sculptures from the intended trajectory.
For those keeping score at home:
The new museum displays sculptural
copies and originals, all installed in a
copy of the Duomo faade, across the
street from the actual faade, which
displays copies of the sculptural
originals, which were intended to be
representations (copies) of the heavenly population.
If unpacking the deconstructionist
implications of all these originals and
copies signs, signifiers, signifieds
and referents, if one wants to get technical is liable to induce a headache,
or at least to require a pen and paper
to keep track, the actual installation of
the faade model in the new museum
is extremely clean and intuitive.
Even viewing the enormous room,
which is approximately the size of the
Sistine Chapel, a few weeks before the
museum opening, with conservators
working on the Ghiberti doors and
with craftsmen bustling about construction platforms and with sparks
flying about and the noise of saws filling the space, the faade represented a
clean visual oasis.
Verdon did not decorate the model to
look like the original marble to avoid a
Disney effect, and the copies of the
sculptures are not colored to mimic the
original works. A clear divide separates the authentic from the modeled,
which lends the entire apparatus the
feel of a layered archeological excavation. Gesturing to a particular spot
covered by scaffolding opposite the

A woman
looks at models displayed
in the cathedral museum
of Florence.

Newscom/EPA/Maurizio DeglInnocenti

modeled faade, Verdon noted he was

waiting for a delayed 15-foot column,
which would have a carved cross on
the top. I like to put things in peoples
ways, he said.
In the early days of the project, actual excavations had to be done to ensure that no important remains were
hidden beneath the theater. A process
that should have taken six months
took nine or 10. Some potsherds and
a small cylindrical structure with a
hemispheric dome were discovered,
but nothing threatened to delay construction.
Lets say that the director, who is
also a priest, was praying every day
that they would not find anything
important, Verdon said of himself.
If they had found significant remains
of a Roman building, for example, the
chances were that they would oblige
us to suspend all work until they had
completely explored that which
could be as long as three, four or five
years, if not more.
Walking through the cathedral
museum as it now stands, where one
encounters stunning choir lofts, lavish
vestments, models of Brunelleschis
dome, and countless other treasures,
one might be inclined to ponder the
theological implications of such
wealth and artistry. While one is
inclined to celebrate Michelangelo and
Donatello and the rest for their artistic
genius, is the church really supposed
to so fearlessly toe the line between
glorifying God and idolatry?
The answer, according to Verdon,

lies in an arrangement that seems

peculiar to Italy. A visitor cannot walk
around Florence without bumping
into any number of churches with
their own staggering art collections:
Santa Croce, Santa Maria Novella, San
Marco, Santo Spirito, Santa Maria del
Carmine and San Lorenzo, to name a
few. But the Florence cathedral, which
overshadows all the rest, represented
a kind of initial acknowledgement
between the church and the state that a

NATIONAL
CATHOLIC

grand, landmark cathedral is something desired most specifically by the

state and not by the church. The large
cathedral church becomes a representative, emblematic face for the state,
Verdon explained.
At the time, the state identified
itself in the faith and in the rites of the
church, he said. The bigger your cathedral, the more effectively you could
say to people, God has given us wealth,
and we have given a significant portion of this back to him in the form of
a great church. Therefore this is a very
strong relationship and you shouldnt
screw with us.
The Duomo certainly broadcasts
that message loud and clear to anyone
who sees it from up close, or, for example, watches the sunset over Florence
from the incredible perch of the Piazza
Michelangelo across the Arno River.
Its easy to imagine that the new cathedral museum will preach a similar
message of wealth and of power and
of art on the one hand, and of prayer,
giving back to God, and religious
service on the other. In that sense, the
museum both is very new and also
promises to become an important
thread in the fabric of the city that has
been unfolding for centuries.
Standing in front of Donatello sculptures of Old Testament prophets in the
new museum, Verdon discussed the
decision to frame the works in their
broader, monumental context. They
wanted to be spectacular, he said. To
take peoples breath away.
[Menachem Wecker is a Washington,
D.C.-based reporter and co-author of the
bookConsider No Evil: Two Faith Traditions
and the Problem of Academic Freedom in
Religious Higher Education.]

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