Bartoccini Museum

This sculpture, made of walnut wood, is representative of the first phase, “youthful”, the work of the sculptor pistrinese. From his earliest works he reduced anatomical details to a minimum, depriving the sculpture of any psychological insight to realize a work that represents an abstraction from reality. We can therefore already point out that his poetics, counter-current and non-conformist with respect to the contemporary artistic avant-gardes, were already oriented to art as a form, rather than as content.

This bronze work is representative of the transition from youth to artistic maturity of the sculptor pistrinese. While maintaining the anti-avant-garde and neoclassical poetic characteristics of the youth years, this work marks the passage to the use of bronze as the material of the work, which presupposes a wise and calculated use of natural light to ensure full usability, and orientation towards naturalistic themes.

This work, also in bronze, is characteristic of Bartoccini’s full artistic maturity. Compared to the numerous female nude figures (the so-called “dancers”) produced in the years of maturity, however, it introduces some new elements, such as the characteristic figure of the pregnant woman, that contrasts with the plastic poses of the naked woman so far experienced. There are, however, many typical characteristics of the poetics of the sculptor Pistrinese that you can find: the grace of the figure, the harmony of forms, the softness of movements and lines. Like the dancers that surround it in the space of the Museum, “Maternity” is characterized by this neoclassical setting of Bartoccini.

This work, one of the last made by the sculptor Pistrinese, is representative of the last artistic period of Bartoccini, in which are evident references to the sculpture of Michelangelo Bonarroti. The sculpture, also in bronze, is however made in a “levare” of matter in which stone and female naked body merge and blend, imitating the characteristics of natural stone (the marble of Carrara, in fact).

Built in the eleventh century as a sign of faith and devotion of the population of Pistrino over time, in addition to this primary purpose, the small church located in Via della Libertà, next to the Bartoccini Museum, has been used over the centuries for many other purposes.

The people of the village have always lived in close correlation with the church, which over the years has been used as a theater hall, cinema projection hall, home of the Proloco di Pistrino, place for meetings, concerts and meetings.

It is an ancient building with linear architecture, which contains seventeen Renaissance frescoes (dating from 1510 to 1536) and an oil table, scattered along the walls and sides of the altar. The two most important and best preserved are a “Our Lady of Mercy” (left of the altar), and a Crucifixion (right), both of unknown authors attributable to the school or inspiration of Perugino.

The church is also an ideal “continuation” of the collection of the Bartoccini Museum: it houses in fact other 6 bronze statues, donated by the author, arranged to the right of the altar.

Valentina Seri, “Bruno Bartoccini, Umbrian sculptor in the wake of tradition” (thesis)
Giancarlo Rossi (edited by), “Bruno Bartoccini”, Cultural Administration Citerna, 1998
Valentina Seri, “Bruno Bartoccini. Sculptor between tradition and modernity”, in PAGINE ALTOTIBERINE n. 67-68, a. XXIV, 2020, p. 191
Eugenio Sergio Bistarelli, “Church of Santa Maria Assunta in Pistrino”, Parish of Pistrino and Municipality of Citerna, s.d.