Allies of the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni have expressed outrage over the return of an altarpiece by Venetian painter Vittore Carpaccio to the Slovenian church for which it was created more than 500 years ago.
Madonna and Child Enthroned with Six Saints (1518) depicts the Virgin and Child flanked by saints and serenading angel musicians. The work was painted for the Church of St. Francis of Assisi in Piran, a town on the Adriatic coast in an area historically known as Istria, which is today divided between Italy, Slovenia and Croatia.
It was among dozens of works removed from the region in 1940, when Istria fell entirely within Italy's borders, and relocated for safeguarding during The Second World War. Beginning in 1943, the work was stored, and later displayed, at the Basilica of Sant’Antonio in the northern Italian city of Padua.
On 4 September, following lobbying by friars in Padua, the painting was returned to Piran. The move took place less than a week before Italian president Sergio Mattarella began his two-day state visit to Slovenia, which concludes today.
A growing number of right-wing politicians in Italy have denounced the painting’s return as a betrayal of the Istrian exiles—350,000 Italians who fled parts of modern-day Slovenia, Croatia and Italy to escape intimidation and persecution by the Yugoslavian leader Josip Broz Tito after the fall of fascism in the Second World War.
“These works were legitimately moved from Italy inside the Italian territory to preserve them, and they remain part of Italian heritage,” Roberto Menia, a senator for Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy party who is descended from Istrian exiles, told The Art Newspaper. “Slovenia is talking about the restitution of something that was never its own, and that has always been Italian,” he added, stressing painter Carpaccio’s Venetian roots.
In a letter to Mattarella sent at the end of last month, Anna Maria Cisint, a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the hard-right League party, wrote that exiles felt “pain and a sense of loss” over the prospect of the return. Meanwhile, two days after the handover, Alessandro Urzì, a Brothers of Italy politician, said in a statement that portraying the transfer as a “restitution” was “fundamentally incorrect”.
However, the Slovenian government has celebrated the decision. “After 85 years, the painting Mary with the Child on the throne and Saints by Vittore Carpaccio returns to the place where it was originally created,” Asta Vrečko, Slovenia’s culture minister, told The Art Newspaper in a written statement. “I am pleased that these long-standing efforts have finally borne fruit, that an agreement has been reached and that many students, researchers and visitors to the church will now have the opportunity to see the original painting in its authentic setting.”
In a statement, the Franciscan friars in Padua who backed the painting’s return said: “In the context of political events, the basilica was the most natural custodian.The return of the altarpiece to its original location is an important act.”
Luciano Bertazzo, a friar and president of the Centro Studi Antoniani at the basilica in Padua, told The Art Newspaper that the painting will be officially installed in St. Francis in Piran on 27 December, once restoration work on the painting and the church’s altar is complete. He said the Padua friars had been invited to attend the inauguration.
