Set within the architectural setting of La Scala’s Dancers’ Chapel is The Angel: a fired terracotta
piece created in 1985 by Nanni Valentini, an artist of Marche origin and one of the most
passionate Italian sculptors of the 20th century — a close friend, among others, of Lucio
Fontana — who played a leading role in the era of artistic renewal spanning the 1950s through the
1970s and beyond.
The work is articulated as a powerful mass of material, into which the artist has channeled all his
energy by vigorously shaping the clay mixture. In this work, Valentini seems to restore a material
dimension to the angelic figure — by definition ethereal and incorporeal—giving the volumes of
which it is composed the form of two great wings enclosed with their tips reaching toward the sky,
a visible attribute of the angel’s purely spiritual nature, capable of soaring to the direct
contemplation of God. The artist’s hands, immersed in the material, give rise to rough surfaces
rich in dramatic chiaroscuro until the work takes on the appearance of a rock formation, evoking
an ancestral and primitive naturalness. The angel is, in fact, a creature that has existed since the
beginning of creation, in constant connection between heaven and earth.
In the chapel, the work is situated next to the altar, establishing a genuine dialogue both with
Christiane Löhr’s installation Samenwolke (2020), located in the dome, and with the ancient 14th-
century fresco of the Madonna del latte, which comes from the nearby church of San Giovanni
Decollato. In this evocative exchange of references, the angel’s greeting to Mary still seems to
echo, to which the Virgin responds with that “yes” that opens wide the doors to salvation for all
humanity.
We thank the Nanni Valentini Archive in Arcore for its generous donation.