Council Picture Gallery

The Ravenna mosaics are always a pleasure to go and see them

Recommend to local painting enthusiasts.

The location of the Municipal Art Gallery in the former Convent of San Biagio is part of a vast project that has seen the ancient monastic structures transformed into a complex cultural center such as the Cinema Center, the Video Library (now in the Library), and the Arcangelo Corelli Music Institute with the phonotheque (now in an ancient building, located in Contrada Dandini). The environment reserved for the art gallery, sober and at the same time suggestive, certainly lends itself to a happy arrangement of the collections. It must be said that the current availability of spaces does not allow, especially for the "modern" section, an integral exhibition of some groups such as those relating to "donations". The new art gallery was born as a typically "local" museum. To it is connected the institution of a "center". The art gallery does not lack works of particular value, but above all the purpose of "event" to the knowledge and study of the art of Cesena is peculiar, which can be appreciated in all its completeness within the buildings of worship: starting with from the church of San Domenico in Viale Jacopo Mazzoni, where at the beginning of the nineteenth century many of the works of art from the suppressed buildings of worship ended, including those already delivered to the Municipality of Cesena by the French Government and rejected by the local municipal authorities. Among the main paintings of the Pinacateca Comunale there are the splendid panel with the Presentation in the Temple of Francesco Francia and the San Francesco which receives the stigmata by Guercino. The two paintings were deposited a few decades ago by the Municipality of Cesena at the Basilica of Madonna del Monte and the church of the Capuchin friars from where they had also been removed at the time of the suppressions. On this occasion, it was deemed necessary to keep the two masterpieces in place while reaffirming the civic relevance of the works. Instead, all fragmentary frescoes of the fifteenth century are on display; the small shining "Madonna della Pera", perhaps exited from the workshop of the painter Bittino da Faenza, the large tables by Aleotti, by the painter Scipione Sacco and the lunettone by the Imola painter Gaspare Sacchi, various canvases and panels from the 16th century. Unfortunately, the section of the seventeenth century was scarce, the period of best luck for Cesena's painting: and here the reference to the church patrimony became an obligation. The repertoire of the eighteenth-nineteenth-century works is rich in ideas: from the beautiful Piazzetta to the works of the Cesena painters Milani, Plachesi, Andreini and, for the first glimpse of the nineteenth century, Baldacci, Peroni, Pio Guidi. Instead, the contemporary section "Luigi Veronesi" composes a selection of works by artists from Cesena from the early twentieth century on the threshold of the Second World War: from Gianfanti to Grilli, from Barbieri to Severi, from Teodorania Morigi, from Bagnoli to Magnani, from Conti to Malmerendi; an extremely interesting, unpublished series of works from the so-called Neorealist period of Cesena follows. And finally, paintings taken from recent donations: Bogoni, Morigi, Ambrosioni, Bocchini, Veronesi and Morellini, rich, the latter, precious works by contemporary Italian masters. The advice for painting enthusiasts and those who have not seen these works, to go to the art gallery to visit and admire the works. The Municipal Art Gallery is open on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

A picture gallery also suitable for families and children, in my opinion it is an intimate and welcoming environment in which you can move freely without an established path. There are valuable works including Sassoferrato. I was struck by the Madonna of the pear (which hides a particularity that I don't want to reveal in order not to take away the taste of discovering the riddle). Also, for the first time I saw an angel with colored wings, usually they are either white or golden or transparent. We were fortunate that there were few visitors, so the two caretakers guided us and showed hidden sides of the paintings as well as telling us local anecdotes. They were kind and welcoming! The ticket of the Malatesta Library includes that of this art gallery.

Some interesting works, a bit paltry considering the city. I expected more.

From other reviews I deduce confusion: the mosaics (from Cesena and not from Ravenna!) Are not here, they are at the archaeological museum, in Piazza San Francesco. Here we have detached paintings and frescos, some very interesting (Madonna della Pera, Madonna and the Annunciation by Sassoferrato), although no visit itinerary has been organized and there is no chronology or attention to enhancing the best pieces. Given what they sometimes offer abroad, we are at very good levels.

Closed, although it is noted that it was open. Disappointment. Sharing incorrect public information is a sign of lack of professionalism and attention to tourists.