Fra Bartolomeo's 500th Anniversary Celebrated in Rotterdam, Not Italy

The Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam will host a major exhibition titled 'The Divine Renaissance' from October 15, 2016, to January 15, 2017, marking the 500th anniversary of Fra Bartolomeo's death. The show brings together 150 works, including 10 paintings and numerous drawings, many never before seen in the Netherlands. Loans come from the Louvre, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Uffizi. Highlights include two famous albums from Niccolò Gaburri's collection and a portrait of Savonarola by Fra Bartolomeo. The exhibition opens celebrations for the quincentenary, yet Italy has no comparable program, while preparing for Leonardo da Vinci's 500th death anniversary in 2019. Fra Bartolomeo, born in Tuscany in 1472, became a Dominican friar in 1500 under Savonarola's influence. His later works reflect the sobriety of his order, including frescoes at San Marco and San Sebastiano in Florence, influenced by a trip to Rome where he discovered Michelangelo and Raphael. He died in Florence in 1517. The article criticizes the lack of Italian recognition for an artist who embodied Savonarola's reformist spirit, rehabilitated by the Church in 1997.