“The Kiss of Judas. Gianfranco Meggiato”:
An unprecedented comparison with Giotto in Padua hallmarking a return to plasticity and a new Humanism
2 October 2025 – 31 March 2026
Padua is home to a wide-ranging public art project bringing ancient and contemporary together, involving Giotto’s figurative revolution and Gianfranco Meggiato’s monumental sculpture. 2 October 2025-31 March 2026: the historic centre and suburbs of Padua will be the stage for a distributed exhibition titled The Kiss of Judas – The Return to Plasticity. Meggiato-Giotto, curated by Jon Wood and Nicola Galvan. The event is promoted by Padua City Council and organised in collaboration with the Fundación de Arte y Cultura Gianfranco Meggiato.
Meggiato’s work takes up the challenge with the frescoes of Giotto, the great Florentine master:, in the Scrovegni Chapel, beautifully conserved in Padua for seven centuries. Where the XIV century painter – one of the greatest artists of the Middle Ages – returned plasticity to his figures, taking inspiration from Roman classicism, Gianfranco Meggiato’s series of fourteen monumental sculptures provides a contemporary reflection rooted in Italian tradition given new life for our own times.
The heart of the exhibition is the sculpture titled The Kiss of Judas, inspired by the scene of the same name by Giotto in the Scrovegni Chapel, one of the absolute masterpieces of Mediaeval art. The work, located precisely in front of the entrance, comprises eight black figures and a shining figure in the centre representing Christ, standing out above all the others in an ascending spiral, inspired by the same tension seen in the XIV century masterpiece. Peter appears on the left in the act of cutting off the ear of the High Priest’s servant, Judas embraces and kisses Christ in the centre, while the three figures on the right depict the moment of the arrest. The scene is not only a par excellence representation of betrayal but also a metaphor for the human condition: the betrayal that we all commit when we forget our own spiritual nature, thereby allowing ourselves to be captured by fears, ambitions and ephemeral desires.
This work – the beating heart of the project in Padua – is joined by thirteen other sculptures by Meggiato, set up in various symbolic locations and suburban areas. Sites range from the Castello Carrarese to the Listòn, Piazza Eremitani and the Gardens of the Roman Arena through to Piazza Castello and Piazza Azzurri d’Italia, turning the city into an open-air museum where art weaves into history and everyday life. Each work tells a story: The Mirror of the Absolute, opposite of the Eremitani Museum, evokes the relationship between Man and infinity; Fleeting Moment, in the pedestrian area between Piazza Eremitani and Corso Garibaldi, reminds us that life is short and should be lived in the present; Shell Sphere, along the route returning to the Scrovegni Chapel, guards the pearl of our most authentic essence; Sirius Sphere, in the Gardens of the Roman Arena, lifts its gaze towards the stars and the beauty of the cosmos; Towards Freedom, in the Cavour Gallery, opens forms up out of the box as a hymn to life; Mistral, with its red scrolls located in the former Boschetti square area, symbolises the strength of wind and inner rebirth. The decision to place two works – Quantum Man and Latin Soul – even in less central areas emerged from the desire to take aesthetic and spiritual considerations beyond the monumental perimeter, since art stimulates questions and awareness in any urban context.
The sculptures – in bronze using the lost wax casting technique and aluminium using the stirrup casting technique – also reach impressive dimensions of up to 6.60 metres in height and stand out on stainless steel bases. All the works are accompanied by a QR code helping visitors delve deeper into their meanings while also using smartphones to follow the overall itinerary.
The Gianfranco Meggiato Foundation has also created an illustrated book for children specifically for this exhibition which will be presented in the city’s libraries and museums alongside specific educational initiatives, with the aim of introducing new generations to the beauty and dream of art.
Editoriale Giorgio Mondadori will publish the exhibition catalogue at the end of the event in 2026 with photographs and critical essays.
The Councillor for Culture of the City of Padua, Andrea Colasio, comments:
“Gianfranco Meggiato has always been committed to restoring art to its public dimension, taking it out of galleries and museums and bringing it, through his works and installations, into the most lived spaces of the city — the streets and the squares. He chose Padua also for the stimulating dialogue with Giotto and the Scrovegni Chapel, and for this reason he created a work, installed in the Giardini dell’Arena, inspired by the famous Kiss of Judas. It is an intelligent dialogue between contemporary art and Urbs Picta. I thank him, because this important exhibition engages the entire city, not just its central areas.”
“The betrayal of Judas,” explains Gianfranco Meggiato, “does not only refer to the Gospel episode, but symbolizes what we ourselves commit against our deepest essence. My sculpture is meant as an invitation to remember who we truly are: spiritual beings in physical bodies. Only by accepting this awareness can we understand that material reality is nothing more than a thought made visible. Because, whether we are aware of it or not, we are all One.”
“The theme of the kiss occupies a special place in the history of modern sculpture,” highlights Jon Wood, “with internationally renowned works by Auguste Rodin and Constantin Brancusi, who represented intimacy and human closeness in different ways. Gianfranco Meggiato approaches this subject through the lens of Giotto’s famous fresco The Kiss of Judas. Meggiato’s new work interprets this act of intimacy and betrayal in three dimensions, rethinking painting and plasticity in a new, essential and slender sculptural form. Plasticity is reactivated as the sculpture simplifies and distills the corporeal forms of Giotto’s original composition, focusing on those dynamic points of contact, on those sparks where energy is released between forms.”
“Meggiato’s sculptures,” notes Nicola Galvan, “with their ever-changing and ascending forms, evoke the impermanence of what surrounds us and reveal its becoming over time. In what seems to lack substance, the artist seeks the traces of a cosmic thought that connects and harmonizes everything, establishing with the viewer a profound bond that leads them to see reality — and art itself — through a transformed gaze.”
The coming together between Giotto and Meggiato – between Mediaeval art that explored the relationship between Man and the Divine, and contemporary sculpture that recalls quantum physics – consequently becomes an opportunity for Padua to celebrate its artistic and cultural history while, at the same time, projecting itself towards new perspectives, where beauty, energy, and spirituality merge into a single universal message.