Exhibition of Madonna della Misecordia by Piero della Francesca at Palazzo Marino | Migliore + Servetto Architects

Location: Palazzo Marino, Milan

Date: from 6th December 2016 to 8th January 2017

Project by Migliore+Servetto Architects

Curator: Andrea Di Lorenzo

Towards the artwork: a lay procession

“Adapting the eye and the mind to understand the structure and the genesis of a great masterpiece, this is the aim of the approaching path designed for the exhibition of the “Madonna della Misericordia” at Palazzo Marino in Milano.

A narrative, meaningful itinerary, made of light and dynamism, which combines different heights and prospects in order to bring the visitors to face to face with the painted panel, with its being part of the polyptych that encloses it and with its history.

In its conception this process is viewed as a sort of lay precession towards an understanding of one of Piero della Francesca’s masterpieces.

An approach structured into four successive moments that, through dynamic scenic and narrative sequences gradually reveals and contextualizes the work.

All of it aimed at bringing visitors to a place where they can personally measure, explore and observe, before arriving at the sight of the ‘unvarnished’ work, underlined in all its value by the light alone.”

Ico Migliore and Mara Servetto

Migliore+Servetto Architects designed an approching and narrative path for the exhibition of  Madonna della Misecordia by Piero della Francesca at Palazzo Marino. At the entrance, a wide wall, overlooked by a big, golden velarium, that trails from the high ceiling, defines the first approach to the contents and the history of the painting. From here, crossing the graphic wall, the visitors find themselves at an elevated position overlooking the wide “Sala Alessi” at the centre of which is a system made of veiled walls which frame and host the “Madonna della Misericordia”, surrounded by a light frame. The first view presented to the public doesn’t focus on the artwork itself but on its connection with the polyptych it is part of, to return the meaning of its relations.  On the dark, scenic background a dynamic line redesigns, in succession, all the missing parts of the polyptych, and then it turns off and hands the scene over to the sole painting, promptly defined by light.