Conferences

The Absurd Story of “Tobias and the Angel” – Claudio Gulli, Scuola Normale Superiore

Imagine standing before a work of art that you feel, with every fiber of your being, to be an absolute masterpiece. Now imagine that the entire scientific community of the time calls you insane. This is the story of Tobias and the Angel by Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo and the solitary, stubborn battle of Giulio Cantalamessa, the director of the Galleria Borghese who, between 1909 and 1911, risked his reputation for an intuition.
The painting depicts the Archangel Raphael in a gesture of familiar protection as he points out a fish to young Tobias, a detail that is not only biblical but medical, as within its entrails lies the remedy for his father’s blindness. Savoldo, a XVI century master from Brescia, infused it with a staggering modernity, characterized by metallic reflections on the fabrics and a psychological sensitivity that rivaled giants like Titian. Yet, despite its dazzling beauty, the painting was considered a “hopeless case.”
Claudio Gulli of Scuola Normale di Pisa tells us about the negotiations for the State to acquire the work were grueling, and the director feared that time was playing into the hands of great American collectors, ready to strike with blank checks. In those years, the art world was in turmoil: Henry James was writing “The Outcry”, inspired specifically by the scandal of European masterpieces being sold abroad, and the fear that Italy would lose its finest pieces was real.
Cantalamessa’s greatest enemy, however, was not foreign buyers, but the skepticism of his colleagues. They did not see the master’s hand. The painting was sent to Milan, compared with works in Brera and Windsor, but consensus was slow to arrive. It was only thanks to the intervention of Florentine critics, including Carlo Gamba, that the long-awaited recognition finally came: “The State cannot let this slip away.”
In 1911, “Tobias and the Angel” finally found its home at the Galleria Borghese.
Today, that painting speaks to us not only of faith and healing but reminds us that every work of art has a second life made of human battles, courageous gazes, and the stubbornness that transforms a contested object into an eternal symbol of our culture.

“This intervention is part of the Project of Relevant National Interest (PRIN 2022) «Galleria Borghese and its publics, 1888-1938» and was carried out in collaboration with Galleria Borghese.”