Milan, Palazzo Marino's Christmas exhibition returns: the Renaissance of Bergamo and Brescia

After a year’s stop due to the pandemic, the Christmas appointment with art at Palazzo Marino is back: the City of Milan is offering citizens an exhibition on the Renaissance in the cities of Bergamo and Brescia, presenting four masterpieces by great masters such as Lorenzo Lotto, Alessandro Bonvicino known as Moretto, Giovan Girolamo Savoldo and Giovan Battista Moroni. The exhibition will offer in an original setting the most spectacular peaks of this artistic season, within which the young Caravaggio would later be formed, paving the way for modern art. The exhibition, titled The Renaissance of Bergamo and Brescia, will be on view from December 2, 2021 to January 16, 2022 in the Sala Alessi: it is curated by Francesco Frangi and Simone Facchinetti, with contributions from the scientific committee composed of Domenico Piraina, Claudio Salsi, James Bradburne, Roberta D’Adda, Stefano Karadjov, Maria Cristina Passoni and Maria Cristina Rodeschini. The doors of Palazzo Marino will open to the public with free admission and free guided tours.

“The territory of Bergamo and Brescia was the cradle of the formation of the very young Caravaggio, who later moved to Milan to attend the workshops of the artists who worked permanently here, later becoming the genius of light and shadow that we all know,” recalled Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala. “Discovering these works means not only deepening the knowledge of an artistic culture that produced masterpieces, such as those we can admire in Sala Alessi, and paved the way for a new chapter in art history, but also enhancing the wealth of art and history of those territories that were so hard hit by the pandemic last year. Five Municipalities, then, join the ’in art’ celebration for the coming Christmas with the exhibition of works from Milan’s civic heritage, preserved and displayed at the Castello Sforzesco.”

The exhibition is also meant to be a tribute to Roberto Longhi, since it was precisely in the context of his studies on Caravaggio that he was the first to value the originality of the Bergamo and Brescia tradition and its decisive role in the genesis of Caravaggio realism.

The importance of Bergamo and Brescia in the artistic sphere developed from the first decades of the 16th century, when foreign and local painters gave rise to an original synthesis of Lombard and Venetian ways, favored in part by the particular geographical position of the two cities: the last outpost of the Serenissima on the mainland and a contested territory between Milan and Venice. In the two cities a school of painting was established that was strongly oriented in a realistic sense, capable of profoundly renewing the interpretation of the most usual themes of religious iconography. The characters of those events take on an authentic, everyday dimension, obtained thanks to the careful study of luministic phenomena and a non-idealized language, aimed at restoring with immediacy the truth of things and attitudes. The Bergamasque and Brescian Renaissance is attributed the importance of a “third way” compared to the main ones, of central Italy and the Veneto.

Sponsored by the MIC - Ministry of Culture, promoted by the City of Milan and Intesa Sanpaolo (institutional partner), with the support of Rinascente, the exhibition was conceived by Palazzo Reale and realized together with the Accademia Carrara of Bergamo, Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo - Fondazione Brescia Musei, Pinacoteca di Brera, in collaboration with Gallerie d’Italia - Piazza Scala. It is organized by Civita, while the catalog is published by Skira.

Also joining the Christmas exhibition at Palazzo Marino are Municipalities 2, 3, 4, 7 and 8 of the City of Milan, with a double gift to the community, for a wider knowledge of the city’s cultural heritage, in collaboration with the Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco. The exhibition also aims to be an opportunity to promote knowledge of the historical and artistic heritages of Bergamo and Brescia.

Hours: Daily from 9:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursdays from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Early closures and late openings: Friday, Dec. 3 from 2 to 8 p.m.; Dec. 7 closing at noon; Dec. 24 and 31 closing at 6 p.m.

Image: Lorenzo Lotto, Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria and Niccolò Bonghi, detail (1523; oil on canvas, 189.3 x 134.3 cm; Bergamo, Fondazione Accademia Carrara)

Milan, Palazzo Marino's Christmas exhibition returns: the Renaissance of Bergamo and Brescia

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