This Friday's Piece of the Month reveals an exceptional Gothic box linked to Pope Pius II

The Sitges Museums present a new session of The Piece of the Month this Friday at 6pm, in the Rocamora Room of the Maricel Museum, dedicated to a unique work of furniture heritage preserved in the Cau Ferrat Museum: a box in the florid Gothic style from northern Italy and linked to the Piccolomini family, one of the most important lineages of the Italian Renaissance.

The piece, originally dated between 1458 and 1464, stands out for the presence, in the center of the frontispiece, of a coat of arms carved in wood with the crossed keys of Saint Peter and the papal tiara, heraldic elements that allow it to be identified as the property of Pope Pius II (Eneas Silvio Piccolomini), who occupied the papal seat between 1458 and 1464. This detail turns the box into an object of high historical value, since it allows it to be directly related to a key figure in European politics and culture of the 15th century.

A careful study of the piece of furniture, however, reveals a complex and fascinating history. Despite the medieval origin of the main carvings, the box we see today is the result of a profound intervention carried out in the second half of the 19th century, with the aim of preserving, integrating and reusing original fragments from the 15th century. This historicist restoration, carried out with great technical skill, recreated the structure of the piece of furniture following medieval methods, completing the Gothic traceries, rosettes and decorative borders from the preserved elements.

The piece thus becomes an exceptional testimony both to the advanced Gothic, characterized by the ornamental richness and the presence of heraldic coats of arms, and to the revaluation of the Gothic in the 19th century, a time when medieval art was reinterpreted and vigorously reclaimed, in parallel with major European restoration projects. In this sense, the box is fully part of the current debates on the conservation, restoration and historical reading of works of art.

The session of The Piece of the Month will be led by Mònica Piera Miquel, doctor in Art History and president of the Association for the Study of Furniture, who will contextualize the piece within the Santiago Rusiñol collection, her interest in the medieval world and the inventory project of historical boxes preserved in Catalonia, which is currently reviewing and highlighting this type of furniture.

A new opportunity to get closer to the heritage of the Sitges Museums and discover, through a single piece, centuries of history, art and collecting.