Palazzo Ducale Genova

Mostra
Mandylion
Around the Holy Face from Bisanzio to Genova

Museo Diocesano

The exhibition offers the opportunity to visit and get to know the Diocesan Museum, formerly the residence of the canons of San Lorenzo Cathedral.
On display inside the splendid cloisters, built at the end of the twelfth century and embellished with frescoed ceilings, the visitor will be able to see archaeological finds, important groups of sculpture, luminous sacred works – the St. Bartholomew Triptych by Barnaba da Modena and the Trinity Polyptych by the Maestro of S. Maria delle Vigne (fourteenth century) – and altar-pieces which are a reminder of the high standard of painting in Genoa in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Perin del Vaga, Luca Cambiaso, Domenico Fiasella and Gregorio De Ferrari).
The textiles section contains various examples of the silk objects which made the city famous throughout Europe, including a valuable altar-frontal, Mourning over the Dead Christ, made by an unknown Flemish embroiderer in 1515, while another section brings together items of liturgical silverware. This rich heritage of artworks bears witness to the city’s deep-seated Christian tradition and the splendour of a Republic which crowned the Virgin Mary "Queen of the City" in 1637.

Useful information
Exhibition Venue
Museo Diocesano
via Tommaso Reggio 20 r, Genova

Opening Hours
Everyday from 10am to 1pm and from 2pm to 6.30pm
Open on holidays

Admission
full € 7,50 concessions € 6,50
school groops € 3,00

For information
+39 010-5574004
+39 010-562390 fax
www.palazzoducale.genova.it
EMail: palazzoducale[AT]palazzoducale[DOT]genova[DOT]it
EMail: biglietteria[AT]palazzoducale[DOT]genova[DOT]it

Groups
Reservation required
+39 010 562390 phone and fax
Catalogue
Skirà


Mandylion
Around the Holy Face from Bisanzio to Genova

The Mandylion, the name given to the icon of the Holy Face of Genoa kept in the Church of St. Bartholomew of the Armenians, is one of the most mysterious images of the Saviour. It came to Genoa in the late fourteenth century as a gift from the Byzantine Emperor John V Palaeologus to Captain and later Doge Leonardo Montaldo, who then, shortly before his death, bequeathed it to the Monastery of St. Bartholomew of the Armenians.
The story of the Mandylion is told in the miniature paintings that make up the splendid Palaeologan frame which surrounds it. Another valuable eastern relic is the cloth depicting a winged animal between two rotae (wheels); this is the veil which was wrapped around the sacred image, a pendant of which can be found in the Moscow State History Museum.
The leitmotiv of the exhibition in the Diocesan Museum is the idea of the journey. Tradition has it that the Mandylion was not painted by human hand but is the miraculous imprint of the face of Christ on a piece of cloth that He personally sent to King Abgar of Edessa. In the year 944 the holy relic was moved to Constantinople, where it became the palladio (or protective image) of the imperial city. More than four centuries later the Holy Face then left Constantinople and since that time has been preserved in Genoa. The aim of the exhibition is to acquaint visitors with the full historical, spiritual and artistic significance of this image-relic by taking them on a journey which is both external and internal.
The first journey, from Jerusalem to Genoa, centres on an extraordinary encounter, for on the occasion of this exhibition the famous Abgar Diptych, painted towards the middle of the tenth century, has been brought to Genoa from the monastery of St. Catherine's on Mount Sinai (Egypt).
Originally it was a triptych whose central panel was meant to depict a Holy Face corresponding in size to the Genoa Mandylion. By bringing these two works together this exhibition not only permits a comparative study between them, but also invites the visitor to engage in a historical and ecumenical reflection on the roots common to eastern and western Christianity.
The second journey takes the form of an archaeological analysis of the Mandylion, a complex holy object which is narrated and unveiled in a slow approach that takes in its many parts: starting from the frame, passing through the fabrics and finally reaching the panel itself - a path through the exhibition which also becomes a path of reflection.
The two journeys which have led to the bringing together of the Genoa Mandylion and the Sinai panels will be accompanied by important eleventh- and twelfth-century illuminated manuscripts about the legend of the image and by some Byzantine reliquaries which found their way to the west in ancient times. Finally, the last sections of the exhibition present some fundamental aspects of the political and religious "life" of the Mandylion in Genoa in the form of various objects, including the copy which stood on top of one of the gates to the city in the early sixteenth century, which testify to its liturgical and historiographic value from the Reformation onwards.