Concert of Angels
This artwork was probably the apical part of an altar to be carried in procession. It represents musician angels grouped together to glorify the symbol of the Trinity, the epicenter of the scene. In fact, the emblem of the Trinity appears in the upper part of the relief, depicted as an eye inserted in a triangle surrounded by a golden halo embellished with group of clouds with heads of seraphim angels. The lower part represents an angelic concert where angels hold musical instruments and create a typical baroque orchestra. Each of the angels plays a perfectly identifiable ancient musical instrumens: a harp, a leg viola, an arm viola and two theorboes (large bass lute). In the center an angel plays an organ represented with naive realism while other angelic creatures are singing. The scene represents a small baroque concert that immerses us in the seventeenth-century musical world in which with the evolution of the technique of making instruments and the spread of printed paper, music penetrated more and more into social life. This piece was exhibited in the great exhibition The Invisible Made Visible: Angels from the Vatican held in America in 1998 in various locations (Los Angeles, St Louis, Detroit, Baltimore and West Palm Beach) in which it was presented together with other 100 masterpieces from the Vatican Museums.
