Sorella arte - San Francesco tra Medioevo e contemporaneo (Sister Art - St Francis from the Middle Ages to the Present Day)

On Friday 16 October, at 5:00 pm, the Museo Civico Medievale opens the exhibition Sorella arte. San Francesco tra Medioevo e contemporaneo.
The exhibition is conceived as a single project spread across two venues: the Museo d'arte Lercaro and the Museo Civico Medievale.

Starting from the account of the stigmata in the Legenda Maior by Saint Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, in which Francis no longer carries the image of the Crucified Christ only in his mind but also on his body, the exhibition explores the theme of the image as an experience that goes beyond a purely mental or representational dimension to become a place of transformation and relationship with the visible world.

Conceived as alternative paths within the same itinerary, the two sections present two different ways of connecting the visual arts with themes from Franciscan culture: the first investigates their most direct historical, iconographic and devotional reflections, while the second explores the possibility of evoking them indirectly through the forms and subjects of the selected works. Two opposite approaches, two conceptually different paths that converge on the same ground, reaffirming the historical and interpretative value of images respectively.

At the Museo Medievale, the exhibition offers an overview of the Franciscan presence in Bologna between the 13th and 15th centuries, reconstructing through thematic sections the decisive role played by the Order of Friars Minor and by the cult of Saint Francis in transforming the city’s visual culture. Starting from the traditional account of the Saint’s passage through Bologna, handed down in the Compilatio Assisiensis, and from the gradual establishment of the Franciscan community, from Santa Maria delle Pugliole to the construction of the Basilica of San Francesco, the works on display document the many aspects of the relationship between Bologna and the Saint of Assisi, highlighting its iconographic, devotional and cultural outcomes. This section will be placed in dialogue with a selection of 20th-century works, paired not only through iconographic affinities but also through conceptual connections, showing the persistence and continuous reinterpretation of Franciscan imagery in contemporary visual culture.

The Museo d’arte Lercaro brings into the present some of the conceptual themes that emerged from the medieval section and the central themes of Franciscan narrative through dialogues and juxtapositions capable of activating new relationships of meaning, while also reflecting on the status of the image and the possibilities of representation. In critical debate on contemporary art, references to Saint Francis have been made in relation to the work of Alberto Burri and the poetics of Arte Povera; this exhibition instead seeks to demonstrate broader possibilities that go beyond the material and conceptual specificities of individual works. Most of the works on display do not take Saint Francis as an iconographic or thematic reference, nor do they necessarily imply a figurative or corporeal dimension, but instead become critical devices capable of challenging the ways we see and create meaning. This section therefore focuses on the construction of minimal settings based on the short circuit between medieval and contemporary works: the former are placed alongside the latter in order to reinterpret them, also thanks to the semantic flexibility that often characterises contemporary art. It is precisely from the relationship between the images that certain Franciscan themes emerge, from a life of poverty to a love of nature.

The structure of the project across the two venues is accompanied by a targeted exchange of objects, with some contemporary works included in the medieval itinerary and medieval works presented in the contemporary section. This choice is not intended to establish historical, iconographic or thematic continuity, but rather to introduce a deliberate shift, inviting visitors to read medieval and contemporary images as autonomous fields of inquiry, crossed by common questions concerning vision, meaning and the very possibility of the image.

The exhibition will be open until 17 January 2027.