"How to look at the works of art"

Palazzo Salvadori, overlooking Via Manci, shows on its façade a pair of oval stone medallions depicting the Martirio e la Gloria del Simonino (Simonino’s Martyrdom and Glory), sculpted by Francesco Oradini (Trento 1699 - therein 1754); after receiving his training in the workshop of his own father - carver Tommaso Oradini -, he became the greatest interpreter of the sculpture in Trentino in the mid-eighteenth century.

The two sculptures were commissioned by the wealthy merchant Francesco Moser, Valentino Salvadori’s son-in-law. In fact, Salvadori was the palace’s owner; in its chapel Oradini made also the marble altar and the wooden doors between 1749 and 1750.

At the Museum of the Buonconsiglio Castle two small white Carrara marble bas-reliefs are being preserved since 1908; they come from the villa “Gentilotti” - in the area called Novaline, not far from Trento - that was once owned by the barons Trentini.

They are just the same of the bas-reliefs of Palazzo Salvadori, with only a few variations, and are to be considered Oradini’s works for his patrons’ private devotion. In iconographic terms, the work brings to mind the 16th-century wooden high-relief of the Swabian school that was once in the church of San Pietro, and now at the Museo Diocesano Tridentino (Tridentine Diocesan Museum).