Anno Robbiano 2023

The City of Terracotta. The exhibition in the Della Robbia year in Foiano della Chiana

Foiano della Chiana celebrates the Della Robbia family, who between the 15th and 16th centuries were among the protagonists of the Florentine scene, at the time the most lively and influential in Europe. Sculptors and artists who specialised in the glazed terracotta technique, they became the symbol of coloured majolica, known today as Della Robbia. This is a special relief sculpting technique that allows the terracotta to be worked by glazing the surface to produce the robbiane, on whose surface a shiny, coloured glaze cover is applied. The industrious activity of the Della Robbia family covered a long period of time, from the first decades of the 15th century until well into the second half of the following century. More than a hundred years that have indelibly marked all of modern western culture.

Foiano della Chiana has been at the centre of this extraordinary journey, becoming the town that, after Florence, holds the greatest number of Della Robbia’s works. A rich treasure, not only for the quantity of the masterpieces, but also for the high quality of their workmanship. Already documented in the 11th century as an important centre of the Valdichiana, Foiano della Chiana, preserves in its churches the tangible sign of the favour accorded locally to the work of the Della Robbia family during the 15th century and the first decades of the 16th century.
Foiano della Chiana has decreed 2023 as the ‘Robbiano Year’ and has built on this, together with the Ministry of Culture, the Region of Tuscany, the Province of Arezzo, with the collaboration of the Mann (National Archaeological Museum of Naples) and the State Archives of Siena, an exhibition-event that moves among the many Della Robbia sites in the city and works that come from afar and that tell of the magic and wonder of the Della Robbia family’s art and relate ancient art to the Renaissance.
From 3 June to 30 September, it will be possible to immerse oneself in the greatness of this family’s art through an exhibition and a series of ‘Itinerari Robbiani’ that will accompany us through the streets, squares and churches of Foiano della Chiana. There will also be conventions, meetings and events that will relate the centuries-old history of the town to the contemporary world, such as the art exhibition ‘Nobilis Materia’ by Gian Luca Bianco, curated by Massimo Magurano at Sala Carbonaia, or the project ‘Al Museo. . with class’ project of the Istituto Omnicomprensivo di Foiano in which the Foiano museum will become a multimedia classroom where children will teach.
A very important role in the Anno Robbiano project was played by the Mann (National Archaeological Museum of Naples), which granted a series of extraordinary works from the classical age.