Claudio Parmiggiani creates anti-mafia sacred artwork for AMEI tour

Claudio Parmiggiani, born in Luzzara in 1943, has created a new work commissioned by AMEI (Associazione Musei Ecclesiastici Italiani), marking a return to church patronage of contemporary art. The piece, a thick glass slab polished into a mirror with a violent crack at its center, was unveiled on March 27 at Museo San Fedele in Milan, housed within the 16th-century church of the same name. The crack evokes the bullet that killed Father Pino Puglisi, a priest murdered by the mafia on September 15, 1993, in the Brancaccio neighborhood of Palermo. The work toured 13 ecclesiastical museums across Italy from March to September 2017, ending at the Casa Museo Puglisi in Palermo on September 13, just before the anniversary of Puglisi's birth (1937) and death. Puglisi was beatified in 2012 by Pope Benedict XVI, with the ceremony held in Palermo the following year. Parmiggiani's piece merges religious meditation on death and suffering with civil resistance against organized crime. The tour included stops at Museo diocesano "Adriano Bernareggi" in Bergamo, Collezione Paolo VI in Concesio, Museo Baroffio in Varese, Museo del Tesoro del Duomo in Vercelli, "Kronos" – Museo della Cattedrale in Piacenza, Museo diocesano del Capitolo in Cortona, Museo diocesano in Fabriano, Museo diocesano in Molfetta, Museo diocesano "San Matteo" in Salerno, Museo diocesano e del Codex in Rossano, and Museo diocesano "Mons. Aurelio Sorrentino" in Reggio Calabria.