In one Flesh
The Sense of the Body

edited by Giancarlo Polenghi, Francesco Paganini

Exhibition catalogue. Florence, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, 8 November-12 December 2016

introductions by cardinale Giuseppe Betori, Stefania Fuscagni, Timothy Verdon

The exhibition is the outcome of a unique and structured experiment. The Sacred Art School offers its students the chance to specialize in sacred arts and crafts, an innovative idea on the art scene. In order to achieve this, it has brought together professors specializing in artistic and technical fields with professors of theology, Christian art and the design of sacred space for the first time.

By embracing the exhibition proposed by the Sacred Art School in Florence on the human body from a Judeo-Christian viewpoint, the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo celebrates its past by looking to the present and future. The masterpieces of sacred art that are part of its heritage – sculptures created for the Baptistery of San Giovanni, the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore and Giotto’s Bell Tower – spoke solely with the language of the body, which became the most eloquent means of communication known by faith.

The results, the artworks, reflect the work of the students in their interaction with their teachers and with each other: students who are specifically interested in practicing sacred art and teachers who have devoted their professional lives to this.