Modena si Mostra - Church of St. Pietro

When Italians talk about “being generous” they say that they have long sleeves, literally “essere di manica larga”. If this is true, we could say that the Church of San Pietro had a sleeve that was… very long indeed. Although today it is interrupted by modern partitions, it is still possible to trace the course of a 16th-century corridor that ran the length of the building, a good 160 metres. At t...

An atmosphere of Renaissance sacredness fills the solemn sacristy of the Church of San Pietro built from 1538 onwards. The large rectangular hall is entirely covered by a vault, designed in 1578 by Girolamo da Vignola, and painted with intertwining branches laden with leaves and fruit, all converging toward the majestic figure of Christ the Redeemer at the centre. Now look at the walls. A painted...

The Church of San Pietro is flanked by the Museum of Sacred Art: a veritable collection of treasures which, through their splendour and symbolic power, have enriched the place of worship throughout its history. The reconstruction of the altar erected in 1629 for the solemn funeral of Duke Cesare d'Este, the main architect of the move of the ducal court from Ferrara to Modena in 1598, certainly des...

You have surely already seen many altarpieces. Those sacred paintings, often on wooden panels, which in the Middle Ages and Renaissance were placed above or behind altars. In this majestic work, Begarelli uses sculpture, instead of drawing and the usual pictorial techniques, to create an altarpiece. As proof of this we know that, in the initial plan, the four figures of Saints Peter, Paul, Geminia...

When we speak of Classical or Renaissance sculpture, it is almost natural to think of marble. Certainly not of humble terracotta, with which Antonio Begarelli made the sculptures in this church. In the area around Modena, the lack of marble quarries gave rise to a tradition of sculpture based on terracotta and Begarelli knew how to work terracotta with such mastery that he made it look like sculpt...

It is customary to say of a statue, in a metaphorical sense, that it looks alive or even seems to move. You may be surprised to learn that, far more often than one might think, statues really do move—not figuratively, but in a literal sense. This is the case, for example, of the six terracotta sculptures in the nave of San Pietro Church, which only set foot on their current pedestals in 1819, thre...

Were you already familiar with this church? Today it is not an obvious question, since it is slightly far out from the city centre and open mainly for religious services. But is a treasure really a treasure if it is not at least partially hidden? San Pietro is a focal point of Modena's history and one of its most interesting religious buildings, along with the monastery complex in which it is loca...