Iconographia
5130 Tarsie del duomo di Todi
Edited by Marilena Righetti
1978 / 72 PAGES.
Language: Italian edition
This volume is a collection of photographs of the wood inlay in the choir of the cathedral of Todi, created by Antonio and Sebastiano Bencivenni in the early 1600s. The end date, 1530, places this choir among the last inlay works in Italy.
In the early 1600s, father and son duo Antonio and Sebastiano Bencivenni built the majestic wood choir of the cathedral of Todi, devoting all their skill and attention to minute detail to the insertion of twenty-two inlaid panels into its stalls. Within a framework of religious stateliness, visitors are amazed as the panels open up onto a metaphysical world, frozen in a moment in time: the books in the foreground with their pages still raised; a pair of scissors paralysed mid-swing; a caged bird – the only living creature in a world of mineralised shapes – with its beak half-open in an unresolved attempt at singing.