How many moons are in the local art museums?

To answer this question, the Serafino Zani Observatory and Planetarium, through the project “All the moons of the museums” has asked each of the museums of the region around Brescia, Italy about their paintings that contain a representation of the moon, either real or symbolic. The project was conceived on the occasion of the “White Night”, on the first Saturday of last October. The city of Brescia organized many activities, all inspired by the Moon, in different outdoor spaces, buildings and museums of the city, including a public conference of the astronomer Massimo Della Valle, that was held in the 19 th century home museum of the most important art collector of the city. The evening also included telescope observations in the garden of the most important museum of Brescia, Santa Giulia.

The replies received from the museums of other local cities, like Accademia Carrara of Bergamo, Museo Ala Ponzone of Cremona, the city museums of Pavia (Malaspina collection) and Pinacoteca Ambrosiana di Milano, suggests to the organizer of the project    that it should be expanded to include more museums across Italy. The idea is to collect more information about the “museum moons” that will become an original subject to attract not only audiences interested in science but also the art museum visitors during the yearly celebration of the Apollo 11 landing each July. For that reason the project will be diffused by the Italian Association of Planetaria with the collaboration of art museums and planetariums of Italy.

 

 

Caption of the photos (courtesy by Accademia Carrara)

 

A painting of Accademia Carrara, the main art museum in Bergamo, that represent a rich woman of the past, Lucina Brembati (1518-1523), include a curious detail on the disk of the moon. The artist Lorenzo Lotto write two letters “CI” inside the moon disk. It is a rebus. In fact if we include the two letters in the middle of the Italian word “Luna”, the final result will be the name of the woman, LuCIna.

 

Associazione dei Planetari Italiani
c/o Centro Studi e Ricerche Serafino Zani, via Bosca 24, 25066
Lumezzane (Brescia), tel. 030872164.

 

From the Planetarian Journal of Decembre 2019 (click to enlarge)