SIBILLE, Exhibition Civic Museums of Palazzo Farnese, Piacenza

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SIBILLE:

Voices beyond time, beyond the stone

From 5 December to 3 May 2026

Civic Museums of Palazzo Farnese

Piazza Cittadella, 29, , Piacenza

Opening soon: at 10:00

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Palazzo Farnese in Piacenza presents from December 5, 2025 to May 3, 2026 the exhibition Sibyls. Voices beyond time, beyond stone, curated by Antonio Iommelli, Director of the Civic Museums of Palazzo Farnese. An enchanting and complex exploration of the female prophetic figure of the Sibyls, conceived to enhance their role in art history and to emphasize their indissoluble connection with the city's artistic heritage. On loan from the Borghese Gallery in Rome comes the work The Cumaean Sibyl by Domenico Zampieri, known as il Domenichino, a masterpiece of the seventeenth century that embodies the classical and vibrant interpretation of the prophetess, which will be the heart of the exhibition and the focal point of a "tight" temporal dialogue with contemporaneity, thanks to the presence of eight sibylline sculptures by the Piacenza artist Christian Zucconi. The project stems from the desire to highlight the importance of the Sibyls in the context of Piacenza, particularly in reference to the pictorial cycle by Giovan Francesco Barbieri, known as il Guercino. Between 1626 and 1627, Guercino left a fundamental testimony in the Cathedral of Piacenza, where he frescoed the cycle of the Prophets by inserting pairs of Sibyls in the lunettes of the drum. This act, which completed the work started by Pier Francesco Mazzucchelli, known as il Morazzone, testified to the equal relevance of these prophetic figures in the culture of the time, making Piacenza a natural place to host an exhibition dedicated to this theme. The Sibyls also appear in two other symbolic places in the city: in the sixteenth-century dome of Santa Maria di Campagna, frescoed by Giovanni Antonio de' Sacchis, known as il Pordenone, and in the basilica of San Francesco, where Giova Battista Trotti, known as il Malosso, included them as a crowning element of his Coronation and Genealogy of the Virgin Mary. The juxtaposition between seventeenth-century painting and modern sculptural works aims to create a temporal connection that reinforces the sense of continuity, physicality, and relevance of the Sibylline myth, both in local and universal artistic production. At the center of the exhibition is the Cumaean Sibyl by Domenichino from 1617, a date attested by a payment receipt from Scipione Borghese which, it is hypothesized, may have somehow suggested the iconography. The Sibyl is portrayed with a turban and behind her a viola da gamba. Her beautiful face reveals clear contacts with the Bolognese school, showing the typical gaze of the protagonists by Guido Reni. Behind her, the landscape reveals precise symbolic references, such as the laurel, a sacred tree to Apollo, protector of the arts, and the vine, which refers to Bacchus, god of wine and poetic inspiration, but also to Christ whose coming was foretold by a Sibyl according to Virgil's interpretation. The juxtaposition with Christian Zucconi's sibylline sculptures, born in 1978, made of Persian red travertine and iron, are not mere accompaniments, but represent the modernization of the myth through a sculptural language that explores its psychological and symbolic dimension. Zucconi has entirely curated the installation, taking care of the design, the setup, the lights, and the sound work "Sibylline Verses with words", composition, and music by Christian Zucconi himself, voice and noises by Greta di Lorenzo and percussion by Gian Luca Capelli. An audio track that guides the visitor in a circular repetition of events and sounds, a continuous succession of meanings that extends the theme of prophecy and time beyond the visual, completing the dialogue between sculpture, myth, and modernity. All these works, together, offer a journey that starting from Piacenza and passing through Pordenone, Malosso, Guercino, and Domenichino, arrives at the sculpture and contemporary sound of Zucconi, demonstrating the vitality and resonance of the Sibylline myth as a universal prophetic archetype that resonates through the centuries.

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Artsupp Card: museum + exhibitions 5.00 €

	opens - closes	last entry
monday	Closed now
tuesday	10:00 - 13:00
tuesday		15:00 - 18:00
wednesday	10:00 - 13:00
wednesday		15:00 - 18:00
thursday	10:00 - 13:00
thursday		15:00 - 18:00
friday	10:00 - 13:00
friday		15:00 - 18:00
saturday	10:00 - 18:00
sunday	10:00 - 18:00

SIBILLE:

Voices beyond time, beyond the stone

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