Ritorno a casa. Il cofano ritrova smalto

Crowdfunding for Palazzo Madama

Today Palazzo Madama has a great opportunity:  to acquire  five Limoges enamels which originally decorated the back of the Guala Bicchieri coffer, a masterwork of our museum and of European Gothic. The five enamels  were probably removed from the casket during the XVIIIth century when it was kept in the abbey of Sant’Andrea in Vercelli (Piedmont).  From there, they  passed to a private collection in France and  then to an art gallery in Paris, where they are now on sale. To prevent these precious fragments being dispersed  anew, we would like to bring them back to  Piedmont,  and to reunite them with the coffer to which they belong.  

The enamels

The five enamels, in gilded copper and champlevé enamel (blue, green and white), were originally fixed to the back of the Bicchieri coffer, which is today completely bare, and they occupied the spaces between the historiated medallions, which are also lost. Their acquisition will therefore make it possible to reposition them on our “treasure chest”, giving back to this artwork a part of its lost decoration.

A masterpiece in Palazzo Madama collection

The Palazzo Madama coffer is a unique object within medieval art: for the splendour of its enamels and of the lock, with hybrid creatures in chiseled copper – a piece which alone is judged one of the greatest masterpieces of XIIIth century goldsmith’s art; for the lavishness of its decoration: with the nine medallions of the front, in openwork copper, representing battling animals; and the eight medallions on the sides, with secular scenes  depicted with extreme naturalism. The distinctiviness of the cardinal’s casket comes also from the fact that there is only one other coffer in the world with similar dimensions and decoration – in Aachen cathedral –, and that is a piece of a later date, much restored in recent times.

Cardinal Guala Bicchieri

The coffer  is also of unique historical value  because its owner, Cardinal Guala Bicchieri (Vercelli ca. 1160 - Rome 1227), was one of the most influential politicians of his time. He  undertook crucial diplomatic missions in Italy and Europe on behalf of Pope Innocent III, who appointed him regent of England after the death of King John, a position he held between 1216 and 1218.

Moreover, the coffer was part of a rich collection - assembled by the Cardinal during his travels across Europe - which included 104 liturgical vestments, 80 works in gold, 8 works of l'Oeuvre de Limoges, 70 rings and 130 manuscripts, many of them illuminated. Surprisingly enough, ten artworks which belonged to that collection have survived and today are preserved in different institutions:  besides Palazzo Madama in Turin, at the Leone Museum in Vercelli, the Castello Sforzesco in Milan and the National Library in Turin. The richness of this collection and Guala Bicchieri's important commissions - the foundation of the abbey of Sant'Andrea in Vercelli in 1219 and the cycle of frescoes in the apse of the church of San Martino ai Monti in Rome - make the Cardinal one of a the small  number of ecclesiastics of the early thirteenth century who were both great art collectors and major patrons of important religious foundations.

Make a donation and become part of the history of Palazzo Madama

For all these reasons, we ask you to join our project and help us bring the five enamels from Guala Bicchieri's coffer back to Italy, to the museum that preserves the masterpiece of his artistic collections.

We need to raise the sum of 50 thousand euros to purchase the five enamels and  restore them to the coffer.

Every contribution is important and thanks to your support you will become part of the thousand-year history of Palazzo Madama.