Sergio Padovani's 'Sanctimonia' at Imola's Diocesan Museum and Pomo da DaMo

Sergio Padovani (Modena, 1972) presents his solo exhibition 'Sanctimonia' across two venues in Imola: the Museo e Pinacoteca Diocesani and the nonprofit association Pomo da DaMo. The show features depictions of saints—both major figures like Sant'Antonio Abate, San Paolo di Tebe, and San Girolamo, and lesser-known ones such as Sante Mustiola and Gemma Galgani, alongside local saint Cassiano di Imola—contrasted with heretics like Fra Dolcino and Martin Luther, the latter marking 500 years since the Disputatio that began the Lutheran Reformation. At the Diocesan Museum, Padovani's contemporary works are installed in the 'appartamento rosso' of Pius IX, engaging with 17th- and 18th-century paintings. The exhibition draws on sources including Jacopo da Varagine's 'Legenda Aurea'. In the secular gallery space, the saint series continues with figures 'who tried to surpass their anthropological limits', as curator Stefano Taddei notes. A triptych explores female sanctity: Mustiola, Gemma Galgani (a stigmatic who fought the devil), and the bearded Santa Liberata, whose depiction 'pays homage to Hieronymus Bosch' (Francesca Baboni) but veils her identifying beard. Separate small canvases depict heretics against gold grounds partially overlaying their bodies, suggesting incompleteness and corruption yet complementarity with saints in their strained tension toward the Divine.