A new chapter in 14th-century painting at Villa Verucchio

Important fresco behind wooden choir of Santa Croce church in Villa Verucchio resurfaces after 700 years

Modified on: 09-01-2024

An important fresco behind the wooden choir of the Church of Santa Croce in Villa Verucchio re-emerges after 700 years

Romagna is a land to discover, one that knows how to amaze and surprise at all times.
In its immediate hinterland, and precisely in the Church of Santa Croce of Villa Verucchio, behind the wooden choir was discovered, by chance, an ancient fresco depicting a moving Pietà of Christ.
At a first analysis of some scholars, the work dates back to the fourteenth century, and the hypothesis is also emerging that it is even attributable to Pietro da Rimini, exponent of the painting season of the fourteenth century in Rimini, of which in the province there are several traces, such as the late Crucifix of
Santarcangelo and two panel paintings owned by the Cassa di Risparmio di Rimini Foundation temporarily exhibited at the City Museum.

These are scenarios and hypotheses of considerable suggestion and of course, ones to be studied and carefully explored, which however highlight the extraordinary nature of the discovery and the local heritage’s acquisition of another very important fourteenth-century work.

 

It should also be remembered that a large altarpiece was created for the Church of Villa Verucchio, the work of the fourteenth-century painter Giovanni Baronzio, part of which is now exhibited in Rome at Palazzo Barberini, while the other part was acquired in 2006 by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Rimini and then it too stored at the City Museum of Rimini.

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