Displaying items by tag: museo dell'opera de duomo

New York's Museum of Biblical Art (MOBIA) will close its doors this summer, after operating for a decade. The institution's current Donatello exhibition will remain on view through June 14, as planned, but MOBIA will cease operations on June 30, 2015, the museum announced today.

"Sculpture in the Age of Donatello: Renaissance Masterpieces From Florence Cathedral," which features 25 pieces from the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, many of which had never before left Italy, has been a blockbuster by the small museum's standards. Since opening in mid-February, the show has very nearly surpassed MOBIA's all-time high for annual attendance with 20,000 visitors.

The Museum of Biblical Art in New York City will host an unprecedented exhibition of sculptures by Donatello along with works by Filippo Brunelleschi, Luca della Robbia, Nanni di Banco, and others. The works, which were created for the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo in Florence, have never been on view in the United States.

“Sculpture in the Age of Donatello: Renaissance Masterpieces from Florence Cathedral” will feature 23 works created for Florence’s Duomo by leading masters of the Italian Renaissance. Highlights include Donatello’s “Lo Zuccone (Habbakuk),” which was created during the most productive period of his career; two recently restored bronze heads, one by Donatello and the other by Michelozzo di Bartolomeo, which were made for the singing gallery that Donatello fashioned for the Duomo’s interior; and three early 15th-century stone reliefs derived from scenes from the Florence Baptistery’s Gates of Paradise by Lorenzo Ghiberti. A full-scale cast of Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise will be on view in New York City at a location that will be announced in the months leading up to the monumental exhibition.

The Museum of Biblical Art, an independent museum that explores the Bible’s impact on art, is the sole venue for the exhibition. The Duomo is currently undergoing an expansion and renovation that is expected to reach completion in October 2015.      

“Sculpture in the Age of Donatello: Renaissance Masterpieces from Florence Cathedral” will be on view at the Museum of Biblical Art from February 20 through June 14, 2015.

An American tourist broke a finger off of a 600-year-old statue housed in Florence’s Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, which boasts a significant sculpture collection dating from the Renaissance and medieval periods. The damaged statue, which is thought to depict the Virgin Mary and dates from either the 14^th or 15^th century, is part of a work titled Annunciazione. The sculpture is believed to be by the Florentine sculptor Giovanni d’Ambrogio.

The tourist, a 55-year-old man from Missouri, allegedly snapped off the right pinky finger of the statue while attempting to measure it. While the incident appears to have been an accident, Italian officials questioned the American and will determine what action to take. It is unclear how much it will cost to fix the finger, which was not original to the work and was added to the sculpture at some point after its completion.

Tim Verdun, the director of the museum, said that “in a globalized world like ours, the fundamental rules for visiting a museum have been forgotten, that is: Do not touch the works.”