Diotti had his best chance to give new force to the ancient technique of the “frescoes” with the ones he realised for the presbytery of the Cremona Cathedral. Concurrently, he could break with his Neoclassical language in the context of the great evangelical narration that had its main characters in some great Renaissance masters such as Boccaccino, Brembo, Melone, Romanino, Pordenone.
In 1827 Diotti himself proposed a project for the redecoration of the buffered arches in the presbytery. He sketched the iconography rapidly, but it took a very long time for the sketches to be approved, and for Diotti to solve technical and environmental problems, to find financial resources and handle paperwork, so he could start working on the project only in 1830.
Diotti made all the preparatory work, from smaller sketches to big cartons in real scale, in his study in Bergamo, while he was teaching there at the Carrara Academy. He transferred the images on plaster during late summer and autumn, while school was closed, so he was free from his school commitments, as well as climate conditions were more favorable. His student Luigi Trécourt was helping him on the scaffolding.
Diotti realized, in the following order: The Angels’ appearance after the Ascension (1830), St. Thomas’ disbelief (1832), The blessing of the children (1833) and, in the end, The delivery of the keys to St. Peter (1834). These frescoes were realised throughout several years, so the final result, even if very harmonic in structure and chromatism, appears more stiff than in the preparatory cartons.
Donated by Mario Cipriani and Anna Atti, 2013
