Museo del Beato Angelico

The Beato Angelico Museum was born from an end: that of the sharecropping peasant world, a way of life that had characterized the Mugello territory for centuries. The abandonment of the houses in the 1960s led to the abandonment of many churches: no longer places of worship and, therefore, not adequately protected for the sacred art preserved inside them. Hence the need for a Museum. Of sacred art and popular religiosity because paintings and liturgical furnishings have intertwined over time with the religious life of a community. The museum aimed to enhance the individual "beauty" of the exhibited objects while highlighting their connections with the overall local culture: following the logic of the "Widespread Museum", which considers the themes addressed in rooms and showcases as invitations to rediscover and delve into them in the reality of the territory. The dedication to Beato Angelico is emblematic, especially if focused more on the profound meaning of his style than on the chance of his birth in Vicchio: of popular nobility and complex simplicity. The visit path begins with a sort of 'index' that anticipates the themes addressed in the subsequent spaces: from the multiple and diversified presence of the "sign of the cross" (precious crosses and crosses placed on sheaves of wheat) to the long time of the sacred (Etruscan and seventeenth-eighteenth-century ex-votos), from the recovery and restoration of stolen works to sculptures that refer to popular devotion as well as to aesthetic quality (bust of Andrea della Robbia). The parish churches have been important for the history and social organization of the Mugello territory: a map reconstructs their distribution while paintings and liturgical furnishings are organized by homogeneity of origin. Particularly noteworthy are an antiphonary, various chalices and ostensors, an Annunciation by Furini, and the Holy Family by Hugford. Pilgrimages and processions confirmed the presence of the sacred in the territory: a large photograph recalls the atmosphere, specified and enriched by the tabernacles of Campestri and Rupecanina and by the signs of the presence of the Companies (capes, registers of members). After the charm of the works, a documentary break follows: sitting at a parish archive table, it is possible to consult excerpts from parish registers, parish priests' diaries, and pastoral visits. At the back of the room, a slideshow expands the museum space by archiving and presenting images of the various religious architectural typologies that can be visited in the territory. In the socio-religious panorama of the Mugello, numerous works are linked to illustrious commissions, even if not only Medici ones. The sacristy environment has been reconstructed with sacred vestments and candelabra displayed inside original furniture once stored in sacristies. The path ends in a space where the works are arranged alluding to their original placement: at the beginning a baptismal font and a 13th-century bell, on the sides the altars (one dedicated to Marian worship) with different furnishings and paintings, including the Virgin with Saints and Prophets by the Master of Montefoscoli.

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