The conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks (1453) was a shocking and, indeed, epoch changing event for the whole of Europe, marking the definitive collapse of the ancient Eastern Roman Empire. However, the regime instituted by the City’s new rulers (depicted on the frame of the map) proved tolerant  towards the empire’s ethnic and religious minorities. Proof of this is the district of Pera, on the eastern bank of the Bosphorus (shown on the right of the map). An ancient settlement of Italian merchants, particularly Genoese, which was inhabited by an Italo-Levantine community as late as the beginning of the twentieth century.

Rubaldo Merello was a sculpture, painter and elegant designer. His work references the symbolism of Plinio Nomellini and Gaetano Previati, but also to the novelties brought to Genoa by Giuseppe Cominetti, to the international sinuosity of the liberty lines.
The artist was best known for his landscapes dedicated to the promontory of Portofino, to the small inlet of San Fruttuoso, with the Doria tower where he lived.

His visions of nature are proposed through the intellectual filter of unnatural, often textual colours, the characteristic cobalt blue, red, yellow, bright green.

Merello's works were purchased by the Municipality of Genoa in 1926 and were very much appreciated by the first director of the Museums of Genoa Orlando Grosso who wanted to dedicate a room in the Modern Art Museum to the artist and friend.

According to Vassili Kandinsky, the colour blue was an impulse of humans looking for their intimate nature - a colour that attracts humans towards the infinite and reawakens a desire for purity and a craving for the supernatural. The same thoughts must have been subconsciously shared by those who had commissioned the canvas that had to portray the Passion of Christ.

The blue canvas, painted in monochrome, are imprecisely halfway between popular devotion and cultured art. They were in the Abbey of St. Nicholas of the Bush in Polcevera Valley and they were made in fibre of linen dyed in indigo and painted with white lead. They are fully entitled to be considered illustrious ancestors of the canvas of Genoa or jeans. The collection is made of fourteen canvas, and dates back from 1538 to late XVIIth century. They were inspired by Albrecht Durer’s engravings portraying the Little Passion. The canvas were purchased in 2001 by the Italian State and they belong to the Fabrics Collection of the Archaeological Authority of Liguria, which placed them temporarily in the Museum for now. According to recent studies, these canvas represented the “sepulcrum” or Altar of Repos, an ephemeral setup for Holy Week. Probably they were placed inside the church to create a small chapel for the devotees.

An extraordinary ivory Immacolata (second half 17th century) that illustrates the truly uncommon skill of the craftman in working this material. Unfortunately, the provenance of this genuine masterpiece is unknown, but its iconography suggests Genoese affiliations despite the fact that some details (in particular the complicated hairstyle) would point to the hand of a Nordic artist. Exactly who the artist was is difficult to say. Many foreign sculptors (Flemish, French, German) working in ivory came to Italy - and Genoa was one of the principal destinations - to refine their art in carving, and then, often, they stayed or settled in Italy.

Similarly there were, of course, numerous Italian artists working in ivory. They, like their foreign colleagues, produced works in various materials: not only ivory, but also stone, wood and metals. Unfortunately almost none of them signed or dated their works so we are left to admire a masterpiece that stands out among the ivories of the time while investigating an intriguing open question.

The four Evangelists are depicted inside niches, while the ovals show the martyrdom of St. John the Baptist, San Lorenzo and San Sebastiano. The date and the name of the author can be read on the front bottom right: «Melchior Suez Ann. Dom. MDIC ": the artist was commissioned to reuse the four statues of the Evangelists which had been produced in 1568 in Antwerp for an earlier proposed design of the Corpus Domini processional ark.