Syria Chaos Puts Off Loan of 15th-Century Botticelli Fresco to Israel
Concerned by war clouds over Syria, Italy is holding off loaning a 15th century masterpiece by Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli to Israel.
But citing the importance of cultural relations between the two countries, the Italian Culture Ministry said it would soon decide on a work of similar “high cultural and artistic” significance to send to Israel in its place.
Italy was to have shipped Botticelli’s “Annunciation of San Martino alla Scala” to Israel this week, where the work was to have been displayed at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem for several months starting Sept. 17, as part of celebrations for Israel’s 65th birthday.
A Culture Ministry communiqué released on Rosh Hashanah said that, because of the current situation in the region, the painting would not be sent this week as had been arranged.
The loan was organized by the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, where the painting is conserved, and the Italy-Israel Foundation for Culture and the Arts.
Italian Culture Minister Massimo Bray was scheduled to travel to Jerusalem for the inauguration of the exhibition, which also was to have been attended by Israeli Culture Minister Limor Livnat.
The Annunciation is a large fresco painted by Botticelli in 1481 on a wall at the hospital of San Martino alla Scala in Florence. It was removed from the wall there in 1920 and transferred to the Uffizi, where it underwent restoration.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
