November 13, 2010
-
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
Taking advantage of my rare Saturday off, today I explored Udine a bit more, focusing mostly on the works of Tiepolo.
“Giambattista Tiepolo, one of the greatest European painters of the 18th century, was born in Venice in 1696, and it is there that the largest group of his works is on display today. But another Italian town played an important role in Tiepolo’s formation, and it is Udine. From 1726 to 1730, the local Patriarch, Dionisio Delfino, lavished his praise and remuneration upon the artist, commissioning frescoes that make it well worth the detour to this lovely Friulan town.” (http://www.initaly.com/regions/friuli/tiepolo.htm)
On route to begin my tour at the Museo Diocesano e Gallerie del Tiepolo, I actually stopped to have an ice-cream! It’s November, but the sun had come out today and the gelaterie were raking in money from people happily reminiscing about summer days… it’s been really really dull and miserable this week, so it was nice to enjoy a little bit of cocco and fragola (they didn’t have frutti di bosco – gutted!). Anyway, so I was walking to where I thought the museum was, when I saw a sign for “museum” in the opposite direction, so as it wasn’t quite due to be open yet anyway, I stopped to eat my ice cream and while I was doing so I had a look at my map to check which direction I needed to go. As I was doing so, a man walked past me. He didn’t say anything or do anything, but about 10m up the road he suddenly stopped, turned round and came back, and said “I’ll leave you this leaflet in case you decide…”. At first I thought it was one of those religious leaflets that people often hand out here, but it wasn’t, it was the leaflet for the museum I was on my way to!! He was just about to open it up! I laughed and said that was exactly what I was looking for…he pointed out the door to me, and I said I’d be along in a minute. So, off I went, and there he was, just opening up. He was a lovely eccentric old man and we had quite a chat as he escorted me up in the lift to where the museum starts (as I was the only one, of course!). He had lent me the guidebook to read as I went round, which was very helpful indeed as otherwise I wouldn’t have had a clue what I was looking at!
So, the museum is housed in the Patriarchal Palace, former residence of the Patriarch of Aquileia and current seat of the Bishop of Udine. Tiepolo was commissioned to do frescoes in the palace, and as such there are a lot of his works there.
Picture credit: http://www.paesionline.it/udine/foto_dettaglio.asp?filename=DD1920_udine_tiepolo_museo_diocesano
This fresco is the main one in the Galleria del Tiepolo, where the majority of his works are, and it depicts Rachel hiding the idols from Laban. Not my kind of art work at all, but it was fascinating to see the depictions of various biblical episodes. Like Jacob’s dream, below.
Picture credit: http://www.backtoclassics.com/images/pics/giovannibattistatiepolo/giovannibattistatiepolo_jacobs_dream.jpgAnyway, aside from these frescoes, the palace was full of other artwork, and a magnificent library as well. Well worth a visit!
From there I went towards the Duomo, which I had previously only been in very briefly. I knew there were some more Tiepolo works in there as my Rough Guide describes them as “not to be missed”. So, this time I didn’t miss them, I went round carefully and sought them out!
While I was there, and as it was open, I visited the Museo del Duomo which is in the Baptistery and side chapels. More wonderful frescoes (not his this time, but a young pupil of Giotto) and a very interesting sarcophagus, depicting scenes from the life of Bertrando. I got a full guided tour of this from the lady who was manning the museum… she was the second quite eccentric old person I met today! I had a lovely little chat with her during the course of which I had to tell her SIX times how long I was staying in Udine for! But she was very complimentary about my Italian (of course not about my accent, just my “perfect grammar”
) so that was nice. I still have some places to visit to see the complete list of Tiepolo (list found here: http://www.initaly.com/regions/friuli/tiepolo.htm). The Castle and one other church which I didn’t find today. All in all very interesting, and it was certainly nice to have time to go and explore a bit, as I feel like I’ve hardly been into the centre at all! Well, I haven’t – I think that was only the third time, and I’ve been here 7 weeks! Very different from living right in the centre as I was in Brescia…not that I’m far out, but I haven’t got bags of time to go wandering into town!!
Incidentally, it’s a wonder I was able to enjoy any of this artwork at all – when I woke up this morning my right eyelid was so swollen that my eye was more than half closed! I looked like the one eyed monster! Luckily it had gone down quite a lot by the time I went out, but it’s still not fully functioning!! Thank goodness I didn’t have to teach!!
