Citerna looks towards Monterchi. And between the two villages of the Valtiberina, an invisible thread stretches across six centuries, woven from art, light and grace. On one side, Donatello, with his terracotta Madonna di Citerna. On the other, Piero della Francesca, with the Madonna del Parto: the most mysterious, the most modern of Renaissance Madonnas, universally recognised among the masterpieces of art of all time.
Now, between these two extraordinary presences, the Piccolomuseo places and puts forward Edi Brancolini, an artist from Carpi, a master recognised internationally. His Madonna does not compete, does not imitate, does not profane: she engages in dialogue, with respect and courage, through the universal language of beauty. Brancolini takes up that invisible thread which unites Citerna and Monterchi and weaves it into our own time, presenting a figure born of the present yet carrying with it the echo of a centuries-old legacy.
In the new museum space of the Piccolomuseo di Fighille, within Palazzo Prosperi-Vitelli, among walls that preserve the magnificent sixteenth-century Camino degli Innamorati, his Madonna and his other works find their natural place, where past and present recognise themselves as part of a shared story. Three Madonnas — Donatello, Piero, Brancolini — two eras and a single idea: that beauty endures, transforms, yet remains intact and, above all, is not afraid of modernity.
