Resumen de Giovann'Angelo Montorsoli e la 'Sant'Agata' di Taormina
Giovann’Angelo Montorsoli and the ‘St. Agatha’ in Taormina.
This contribution, which analyzes a segment of Giovann’Angelo Montorsoli’s activity in Messina, offers a new critical reading of a small group of sculptures already known to the specialized literature. The work from which the author’s considerations spring is the marble ‘St. Agatha’ in the Cathedral of Taormina, presented here with a strengthened attribution to Montorsoli, in contrast to the opinions of other critics who have attributed it to Montorsoli’s pupil, Martino Montanini. The restoration of the Taormina statue to Montorsoli’s oeuvre furnishes an opportunity to reconsider the entrenched attribution to Montorsoli of a second ‘St. Agatha’, that in Castroreale and commissioned from Giovann’Angelo in 1554, but which in fact was produced by a collaborator. In light of comparisons between the ‘St. Agatha’ in Taormina and the sculptures of ‘St. Catherine of Alexandria’ by Forza d’Agrò (1559) and Milazzo (1560–61), the author proposes that the role of archetype for this small series of images of Holy Virgins was played by the Taormina ‘St. Agatha’.
