Bergamo, Creberg Foundation restores altarpieces by Simone Peterzano, master of Caravaggio

As we anticipated last month, the Credito Bergamasco Foundation continues its operations in favor of art and presents the restoration of two important altarpieces by Simone Peterzano (Venice, 1535 - Milan, 1599), a pupil of Titian and master of Caravaggio. Not only that: from October 4 to 31, 2019, a double event is staged in Bergamo, as the new edition of the Great Restorations project (dedicated, precisely, to Peterzano) is accompanied by the exhibition The Mirror of the City.

As far as restoration is concerned, the Creberg Foundation, which for about a decade has been engaged in an intense program of interventions aimed at safeguarding notable works of artistic heritage that are fundamental to the communities to which they belong. For this edition of Grandi Restauri, the Foundation has undertaken to carry out, at its own care and expense, the restoration of two monumental Milanese works by Simone Peterzano (who, moreover, will be the protagonist of a monographic exhibition Accademia Carrara is working on for spring 2020), both from the church of San Barnaba in the Lombard capital.

The restoration of the first altarpiece, The Miracle of Saints Paul and Barnabas in Listri, is being carried out entirely at the Sala Consiglio of Palazzo Creberg, where the work has already been taken: the public will be able to witness the operations from October 4 to 31, 2019, and for the occasion will also be able to admire some paintings by Palma il Giovane (Jacopo Negretti; Venice, 1544 - 1628), which come from a number of Bergamasque parishes and are also featured in the Grandi Restauri project for the second half of 2019. For the second work, The Call to the Mission of Saints Paul and Barnabas, the consolidation and cleaning phases will take place at Palazzo Creberg from November 2019 to January 2020, and these will then be followed by a final phase of pictorial restoration.

“The Fondazione Credito Bergamasco, in a logic of collaboration with virtuous subjects, aims to stimulate the curiosity of the general public about the figure and work of Simone Peterzano in anticipation of the Accademia Carrara exhibition,” explains Angelo Piazzoli, Secretary General of Fondazione Creberg and creator of the Grandi Restauri project. "The opportunity to present the works in the Church of San Barnaba will make people touch the pictorial quality and will be very useful in the popularization, also through free guided tours and cultural events, of an excellent artist who, although of great quality, is not known as much as he deserves. To date, our Foundation has supported countless restorations of masterpieces from museums, parishes, and institutions, gaining an important role in protecting the historical and artistic heritage in the area, thereby securing many works in need of care and presenting them to the public once they have been restored. Among these, the restorations of numerous paintings (among the best-known authors we can mention Lorenzo Lotto, Giovan Battista Moroni, Moretto, Alessandro Allori, Palma il Vecchio, Romanino, Paris Bordon, Giovan Paolo Cavagna, Andrea Previtali, Antonio Campi, Francesco and Leandro Bassano) were carried out directly in the Council Chamber of Palazzo Creberg in Bergamo and, before being returned to the communities to which they belong restored to their original splendor, they became the object of admiration and in-depth study by our guests, in an incessant activity of dissemination."

Entrusted by the Creberg Foundation to carry out the interventions, restorer Delfina Fagnani(Studio Sesti Restauri) emphasizes that “the conservative recovery of these two great works, among the most significant of this artist’s works, promises to be first and foremost an absolutely singular and stimulating opportunity in favor of a path of study and knowledge that will be able to contribute in bringing to light, through a dense collection of data, the technical methods of realization of this artist known as very scrupulous in drawing and so close, declaring himself his disciple, to Titian’s chromatics, but also as an important source of technical inspiration for his pupil Caravaggio. The state of preservation is also exceptional, with these two paintings still in their original state as far as the support is concerned: the fabrics used by Simone Peterzano, of a fine, sturdy linen, have in fact never undergone any re-covering. The crowded depictions, which appear in a state of degradation and general heavy blurring, hint at a vivid Venetian chromaticism that can be recovered in legibility and refined original drafting.”

The restorations on Peterzano’s works will be supported in competition with another company, Nettuno srl, which, for several years, has been working alongside the Foundation in important safeguarding interventions. “In line with our policy on Corporate Social Responsibility, once again this year we have taken with pleasure the opportunity offered by the collaboration with Fondazione Credito Bergamasco, to contribute to the preservation of the artistic heritage and its dissemination,” says Marina Fratus, CEO of Nettuno. “In accordance with those corporate values and strategies that are the basis of our entrepreneurial vision, we believe that supporting the Foundation’s prestigious cultural initiatives also allows companies like ours, which due to their structure and size would not have the possibility to travel this path independently, to contribute to the promotion of art and culture, thus generating a shared value that benefits the entire territory to which they belong.”

But that’s not all: also from October 4 to 31, the restoration is accompanied by an exhibition, entitled The Mirror of the City . For this review, curated by Angelo Piazzoli and Paolo Plebani, Fondazione Creberg has asked theAccademia Carrara (with which it has an important collaborative relationship) to lend a series of paintings belonging to the “hidden collection,” that is, a selection of works that are not normally usable in the museum itinerary, but which are of great interest to the Bergamasque public because they are closely linked to the territory (as the title given to the exhibition suggests). Completing the exhibition project will be the presentation of some masterpieces of the Pinacoteca normally visible to the public in the halls of the city museum.

Through eighteen portraits distributed in four sections(The City of Artists, The City of Professions, The City of Aristocracy and The City of Women) the public will be able to retrace part of the history of Bergamo and the people of Bergamo between the 19th and 20th centuries.

The official, mundane, intimate, and romantic portraits painted by the best protagonists of local painting, including Giuseppe Diotti, Giovanni Carnovali known as Piccio, Francesco Coghetti, Giacomo Trécourt, Cesare Tallone, Giorgio Oprandi, and others, hint at the changes in taste that, in particular, were manifested in the bourgeois and aristocratic classes. Especially with Giovanni Carnovali known as il Piccio (one of the most interested students of the Accademia Carrara’s School of Painting and with Cesare Tallone, a great interpreter of portraiture before the genre was replaced by photography, as well as director of the School from 1884 to 1899), that tradition for frank and truthful portraiture that had characterized the city’s artistic history since the sixteenth century continued.

“During the nineteenth century,” says curator Paolo Plebani, “the portrait gained a prominent role, not only as a means of recording a person’s appearance, but also to attest to an attained social status or as a sounding board for probing the human soul. In Bergamo, a city of great portrait painters for more than four centuries, the Accademia Carrara’s School of Painting made a major contribution to the development of the genre throughout the 19th century, especially with the frank and sincere portraiture of Piccio and Tallone. For this reason, the collections of the Carrara Academy, thanks to a series of masterpieces by Giuseppe Diotti, Giovanni Carnovali known as Piccio, Francesco Coghetti, Giacomo Trécourt, Cesare Tallone, and Giorgio Oprandi, allow us to retrace the history of Bergamo, between the neoclassical age and the first signs of modernity, between the early 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century, from a previously unseen point of view. The faces of the protagonists and extras who animated the many scenes of city life, the many cities within the city (the city of professionals and aristocracy, of artists, or that of women, to give just a few examples) tell of the variety and vitality of a diversified social text in a period of extraordinary change.”

For all information you can visit the official website of the Credito Bergamasco Foundation.

Pictured: Simone Peterzano, The Miracle of Saints Paul and Barnabas in Listri (first cleaning sample)

Bergamo, Creberg Foundation restores altarpieces by Simone Peterzano, master of Caravaggio

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.