Pinacoteca Civica Scipione Gentili

San Ginesio's civic paintings include a battle with Fermo painted around 1463, a Ghirlandaio-workshop panel and saints by Simone de Magistris. Displaced by the 2016 earthquake, about thirty works were shown again in the Sant'Agostino auditorium in 2020.

Why it matters

The Pinacoteca Civica Scipione Gentili holds figurative works ranging from the late fifteenth to the late seventeenth century, with a handful of eighteenth-century pieces. Its central work is the panel of Sant'Andrea, better known as the Battaglia tra Ginesini e Fermani, showing San Ginesio's fighters against Fermo. Painted around 1463, it is attributed to Nicola da Siena. The gallery bears the name of Scipione Gentili, the jurist and humanist also commemorated by the town library; the 2016 earthquake displaced its collection.

What to notice

The battle panel presents local history through banners, territory and civic pride, composed within living memory of the events it depicts. The Matrimonio mistico di Santa Caterina d'Alessandria is from the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio. The collection also includes two panels by Stefano Folchetti, Vincenzo Pagani's Madonna in trono con il Bambino e i santi, and a Pietà by Simone de Magistris dated 1594. Two illuminated showcases of archaeological finds complete the ancient section; their material appeared in the 1991 Celtic exhibition at Palazzo Grassi in Venice. A modern section adds prints and sculpture by twentieth-century Marche artists.

Context and history

The ancient section is associated with the former church of San Sebastiano, a fourteenth-century Romanesque building; the modern section is on Via Capocastello. The 2016–2017 earthquakes left the ancient seat unusable. On 18 July 2020, the auditorium of the Sant'Agostino complex hosted the exhibition "Hoc Opus. Ritorno alla bellezza," showing about thirty works from the ancient gallery, including the battle panel, a Visitazione derived from Battistello Caracciolo and a Madonna Assunta after Carlo Maratti, on deposit from Santa Maria in Vepretis.