Group of sculptures in St. John the Evangelist

Address and contacts

Piazzetta San Giovanni - 42121 Reggio nell'Emilia

How to get there

Reggio nell'Emilia - Town centre

Historical notes

In Reggio Emilia the confraternities were known to be real directors of the Holy Friday ceremonies, perhaps starting from the foundation date of the chapel containing the Lamentation (1480).
In 1807, following the Napoleonic suppressions, the Confraternity was dispersed and the Compianto passed to the church of San Giorgio, arriving at the end of the XIX century in its current location in the San Giovannino Church.
The group consists of seven statues placed around the dead Christ, but everything is anomalous: the statue of the Magdalene is missing, while John the Evangelist appears twice (similarly, perhaps, to the image of the Virgin).
Mary's pathetic attitude is highlighted by the open arms and the cry that deforms her face; in the same way the two Johns present a very charged feeling of pain.
The statue of the dead Christ, purchased in the mid-XIX century on the antiques market, is obviously not consistent with the whole; the sculpture was recently ascribed to Michele di Nicolò di Dino known as "Michele da Firenze" (1403-1457 ca.), a wandering sculptor who trained in the workshop of Ghiberti alongside Donatello, author between 1440 and 1441 of the altar of the small statues for the Modena Cathedral.
The Lamentation of Reggio Emilia - result, according to recent studies, of the assembly of different groups commissioned by the ancient Reggio confraternity which still owns it - now appears one of the most complicated among the many preserved in Emilia. All the figures, however, seem following the mid-century and the work of at least two different modellers, the first - author of the Saint John and Mary placed at the foot of the cross - chronologically close to the beginnings of Guido Mazzoni, the other probably influenced by him.