Palazzo Martinengo in Via Musei in Brescia will host, on the occasion of its nomination as ‘Italian Capital of Culture 2023’ together with Bergamo, a new and impressive exhibition curated by Davide Dotti. 

This selection of more than eighty masterpieces from both Italian and foreign public and private collections will make it possible for the first time to explore and directly compare the champions of Renaissance and Baroque painting active in the two cities during the almost four centuries of Venetian rule.

A veritable cultural and artistic head-to-head will come to life in the rooms of Palazzo Martinengo: the works of the great Brescian masters of the Renaissance such as Foppa, Moretto, Romanino, Savoldo and Gambara will face off in an intense and stimulating dialogue, with those of the Bergamo area: Moroni, Palma il Vecchio, Cariani, Previtali and Lotto — who lived and worked for over twelve years in the Città dei Mille (City of the Thousand) — in order to understand how the common Lombard cultural substratum, enlivened by the innovations proposed by Venetian painters (Bellini and Titian first and foremost), gave rise to expressive languages that were in some cases similar, in others diametrically opposed.

It will then be extremely interesting to juxtapose the canvases created during the fifth decade of the 16th century by Moretto and Moroni who, in those years, was in Brescia in Bonvicino’s workshop, from which he assimilated that intense naturalism that characterises the poetics of the Brescian genius.

The same unprecedented and stirring parallels between the exponents of the two schools of painting will be proposed in the subsequent rooms devoted to the theme of ‘portraiture’ — Moroni, Ceresa and Fra Galgario on the one hand, Bellotti, Cifrondi and Giacomo Ceruti known as Pitocchetto on the other — of ‘Baroque painting’, of ‘still life’ — Baschenis and Bettera champions in the City of the Thousand, Rasio and Duranti in that of the Lioness — and of ‘genre painting’ where the protagonists will be the irreverent paintings with dwarfs and pygmies by Bocchi and his Bergamasque pupil Albrici, the landscapes of Roncelli and the rustic interiors of farmsteads and inns by Botti.

Continuing along the stunning exhibition itinerary, ascending to the “piano nobile”, the main floor of the Palazzo, the visitor will find an unexpected surprise: a veritable ‘exhibition within an exhibition’ consisting of four sections – abounding in sculptures, musical instruments, paintings, documents, historical relics and period photographs – employed in an in-depth examination of themes characterising the cultural identity and history of the two cities:

John XXIII and Paul VI: 20th century popes and their relationship with artists. From Picasso, Chagall, and Matisse, to Dali and Manzù

Music in Brescia and Bergamo between the Renaissance and the 20th century

Gastronomic traditions: a close-range confrontation

Marcello Piacentini: a great 20th century architect at work between Brescia and Bergamo

Wandering through the rooms of Palazzo Martinengo, the public will thus embark on an exciting journey full of surprises and eccentric details, the aim of which is to showcase the extraordinary cultural heritage that has stratified over the centuries in Bergamo and Brescia, as well as to stimulate a new awareness of a fundamental chapter in the history of Italian art, written by the great masters of painting active in the two cities, twinned in the year of the ‘Italian Capital of Culture’.