The story
On the upper floor of an old house on Piazza San Liberale in Castelfranco Veneto, a painted band about 16 metres long runs along the walls of a room. It is painted in tones of a single colour and lines up the tools of learning and of the trades, books and astronomical instruments, armour and weapons, musical instruments and the gear of painters. This Frieze of the Liberal and Mechanical Arts, usually dated to around 1500, is attributed to Giorgione, the elusive Venetian painter who was born in this small walled town. Most scholars accept the attribution, though not all. Some read in the frieze the conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn and Mars of 1503 to 1504, which astrologers of the day took as a warning of war.
The house opened as a museum on 9 May 2009, at the start of the celebrations for the 500th anniversary of Giorgione's death in 1510. Around the frieze it gathers about 100 original objects from the town's collections to set him in his time. His other great work in Castelfranco is a few steps away, still in the cathedral it was painted for, the altarpiece of the Madonna enthroned between Saint Francis and Saint Liberalis.
