The case of Donatella’s bust exceeded the borders of Slovakia. It also attracts attention in Italy, where not only the Renaissance sculptor came from, to whom experts attribute the work, but also the noble Cecilia Gonzaga, which he depicts.
The way in which the Secretary General of the Service Office of the Ministry of Culture Lukáš Machala took a rare work from the collection of the Spiš Museum in Levoča, and he kept the Busta, where the bust ended, gained the attention of the Italian Internet daily.
On Monday he published a relatively comprehensive material, in which for a better overview of the reader there is also a map of Slovakia with highlights of Levoča cities as the original storage of the bust and Topoľčianky as the places where the government transferred the collection object.
In the Topoľčian premises of the Ministry of the Interior, the news, which was the first to inform that from the Museum in Levoča.
Pedestal
“The case is definitely strange and stormy,” writes Il Post. It is not only suspended that the Slovak government had taken the bust to a secret place with the help of men in the hoods, but also that the competent refused to say where it was and clarify the matter.
The Italians also mention the research of art historian Marta Herucová, who noticed the bust in the Museum in Spiš, in one of the regions of eastern Slovakia. They state that it was still the former director of the Museum of Mary Novotná.
The Italian reader explains that Herca’s research has prompted the inscription on the bust pedestal. It stands there Ceciliae gonzagae opus donatelli. Donatel’s signature in this form is also found on other works, which are exhibited, for example, in the Florentine Museum Palazzo Vecchio. Visitors will find a bronze statue of Judita and Holofern. Donato di Niccolè di Bardi was born and died in Florence.
They also write about cleansing in cultural institutions
The Italians notice how Herucová found the ties of the Hungarian noble family of the Csáky family to the Gonzags. Il Post approaches the reader there that the Csáky family fled the country during the II. World War II and their palace in Spišský Hrhov near Levoča transformed the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1948 into a girls’ adventure room. They handed over to the museum in 1975.
So far, Donatella’s bust Cecilia has not exhibited Gonzaga for the public. The Museum in Levoča was about to do so in the fall, but these plans have so far disrupted Machala. Il Post writes about him as a person close to Minister Martina Šimkovičová, nominee of the ultranationalist Slovak National Party (CIS).
The Italians do not overlook the purges in Slovak cultural institutions, whose machines have been Machala with Šimkovičová in recent months. The Internet diary is also described by its defense of Machala’s action.
Last week, the Minister persuaded that the Busta wanted to steal the bust last week and that the Levoča Museum was not sufficiently secured. The Italians also notice that it is transported.
