Pala Gozzi: what was the cultural and artistic context of the year of its making?

The Cinquecento volte la Pala Gozzi cycle has just concluded with a significant talk on Titian’s masterpiece given by art historian Stefano Zuffi. It was the year 1520. Conversation with Stefano Zuffi, this is the title of the talk, available on the MIRA - Ancona website and YouTube channel, on the Pinacoteca Ancona Facebook page and on the Instagram profile of the Musei Civici di Ancona(@museicivici_ancona), aims to recount the historical and artistic context in which the Gozzi Altarpiece was created, analyzing the events and personalities that animated the year 1520.

The work, an early masterpiece dated and signed by Titian Vecellio, is among the most remarkable in the collection of the Pinacoteca di Ancona and of an Adriatic culture narrated through symbologies that see Venice, Ancona and Dubrovnik side by side. These days it is the protagonist of the Ancona Monuments and Museums project 500 years after the commissioning of a masterpiece: the Gozzi Altarpiece, the Adriatic, the Eastern Gate, which aims to celebrate the work’s 500th anniversary with short but meaningful narratives.

While waiting for the reopening of the city museums, the anniversary is celebrated through popular videos, suitable for both the general public and insiders, as tools for wide-ranging reflection around the painting. The aim is to offer some previews of the thematic itineraries identified by the MIRA network, which will lead to the discovery of ancient churches, works of art and material evidence related to the work. In line with this is the video intervention by Stefano Zuffi.

In fact, the Pala Gozzi offers fans an opportunity to travel the cultural and artistic Renaissance trajectories of the entire territory linked to the work itself, placing in dialogue the five museum venues of the Marche capital that are part of the MIRA museum network: Museo Tattile Statale Omero, Museo Archeologico Nazionale delle Marche, Museo Diocesano “Monsignor Cesare Recanatini,” Pinacoteca Civica “F. Podesti” and Museum of the City.

The project is part of the program of enhancement of the painting with which Ancona wants to celebrate the five hundredth anniversary of the creation of the masterpiece: in 1520, in fact, Titian Vecellio delivered to the merchant Alvise (or Luigi) Gozzi his Madonna in Glory with Saints Francis and Blaise, better known as Pala Gozzi, after the name of its patron.

Pictured: Titian, Gozzi Altarpiece, detail (1520; oil on panel, 322 x 215 cm; Ancona, Pinacoteca Civica “Francesco Podesti”)

Pala Gozzi: what was the cultural and artistic context of the year of its making?

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