With Sword and Cross. Longobards in Civezzano

Visited at the Castello del Buonconsiglio from 23 March to 20 October 2024, it tells the story of the Lombards in Trentino through the masterpieces found in the tombs of the "princess" and the "prince" of Civezzano exhibited together for the first time. An exhibition born from the collaboration between the Castello del Buonconsiglio and the Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum in Innsbruck, the important Enipontane institution that houses many artifacts of Trentino origin and with which a relationship of great collaboration has been maintained and consolidated over the years.
The exhibition, curated by Annamaria Azzolini, Veronica Barbacovi and Wolfgang Sölder, offers an opportunity to review the historical data and unpublished materials kept in the deposits of both museums in the light of the knowledge increased thanks to the excavations conducted by the Superintendence for Cultural Heritage, but also to deepen issues that emerged as early as the nineteenth century with the birth of "barbarian" archaeology. What was found in Civezzano in the nineteenth century, when Trentino was part of the Habsburg Empire, is preserved in the Ferdinandeum in Innsbruck; what was found at the beginning of the following century and purchased by the Imperial Museum in Vienna, came to the Castle of Buonconsiglio, after the establishment of the Trentino Museum.

The exhibition ideally combines the two museums just as the Trentino museum is celebrating the first centenary of its establishment and the Ferdinandeum has just concluded its bicentenary celebrations. A research that starts from the discovery in the Piedmontese town of Testona at the end of the 19th century of a necropolis whose finds were attributed to Germanic populations, objects that served to identify those found in Civezzano in the "princely" tomb in 1885. From the museum of Innsbruck but also from the royal museums of Turin, truly extraordinary finds arrive in Trentino, at the Castello del Buonconsiglio, very rare testimonies of high manufactures of the first Lombard settlements in these territories.
"It is an exhibition that writes for the first time the history of the Lombards in Trentino," says Laura Dal Prà, director of the Castello del Buonconsiglio. And it does so by offering the public an exciting story, along a path punctuated by authentic masterpieces. Each object tells a story. Starting from an absolute unique: the sumptuous sarcophagus of the "Prince of Civezzano", embellished with refined decorations with animals stylized in wrought iron. The amazing gold jewelry of the "Princess of Civezzano" tells of Byzantine contacts, but also of a strong link with their Germanic traditions.

If "Stile Civezzano" is used to describe the well-known "Lombard" motifs on buckles and tips of silver and iron belts, in the exhibition swords, crosses, fibulae, and gold jewelry are presented as they were once used, thanks to graphic reconstructions. The preciousness and refined workmanship of these finds make it clear that the Lombards of Civezzano were a powerful elite in the society of the time, able to access sumptuous goods. The fact that the necropolis was located far away from the ancient parish church suggests that it was a nucleus of families of Aryan religion. "The investigations that this exhibition stimulated – underlines Annamaria Azzolini, curator with Wolfgang Sölder and Veronica Barbacovi, of the exhibition – were aimed at deepening large-scale themes: from the origin of the raw materials used to the spread of this culture in time and space, up to the analysis of the DNA of human remains. To offer the public and scholars, together with the emotion of admiring artifacts that are truly unique in terms of history and beauty, information that allows them to rewrite a history that has not yet been fully revealed".

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