Marzia Banci, Devolution 2023, sterling silver, 750 gold, silk, embroidery thread, brilliant-cut white and yellow diamonds, rubies, w 24.5 cm × h 75 cm (plates: w 2.5 cm × h 3.3 cm)

The base of the work is embroidered silk from a sacred vestment onto which 4 small silver plates are applied. The plates reproduce 4 renowned paintings of great symbolic value. The work should be  analysed from the bottom up: Francesco Maria II Della Rovere (from the portrait attributed to Carlo Ricolfi) - the Duke who, despite his troubled life, ruled coherently and  foresightedly for the benefit of his subjects and the Duchy; Christ of St John of the Cross (by Salvador Dali): Christ leans from the cross to share the difficulties Francesco Maria II faced in his life; Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X (by Francis Bacon): the portrait, also known as 'the screaming pope', identifies the 29 succeeding popes during the 200-year-long Duchy, and who had conflicting relationships with the Dukes; Angelus Novus (by Paul Klee) refers to the angel rising from the wreckage of war. After ruling for 400 years, the Counts and Dukes of Urbino died out with Francesco Maria II Della Rovere. Pope Urban VIII requested and obtained the devolution of the Duchy 8 years before the Duke's death. Although the four small paintings represent reference figures for mankind, plunging them into the golden vestment of ecclesiastical power shrinks them to splashes of colour.