Brescia – Mysticism, beauty, culture, tradition: even sacred art will have its place in Brescia in 2023, which together with Bergamo is preparing to experience an unforgettable year as Italian capital of culture. Next to program recently presented by the Brescia Musei Foundation at the GAM in Milan, the initiatives of the Diocesan Museum shine, ready to enhance the artistic and spiritual heritage of the city with exhibitions and itineraries in the sign of the sacred. The proposals range from ancient to contemporary and have a transversal charm that goes beyond religious affiliation. Sometimes art meets the social with projects focused on the ideas of inclusion and accessibility, or it is an invitation to discovery and wonder, an opportunity to get to know hidden gems in an area rich in history and resources.

Waiting for Brescia-Bergamo Capital of Culture: December appointments
We will have an anticipation of it in the next few days, with two proposals that arouse curiosity. The first draws on the important season of the Lombard Renaissance, revealing to the public two pictorial jewels kept in the collections of Bper Banca. From 12 December to 15 January the Diocesan Museum will in fact host the Madonna and Child with Saint Paul by Girolamo da Romano, known as the Romaninoand theAnnunciation from Giovanni Battista Moroni, a talented disciple of Moretto: it will be a way to familiarize yourself with two artists who have given a great deal to the Brescia and Bergamo area, where frescoes and canvases of exceptional value are still visible. The collections of the Diocesan Museum itself preserve a significant selection.

Franca Ghitti, Last Supper, 1963-2011 I Courtesy Diocesan Museum of Brescia

The second project of December looks to the contemporary and rediscovers another local gem. It is about theLast Supper made in 2010 by Franca Ghitti, sculptor from Brescia of international standing (1932-2012), for the church of San Gottardo in Erbanno. Neither your studies at the Brera Academy, in Paris, in Salzburg with the great Oskar Kokoschka, nor your artistic research conducted in Africa have ever severed the link between Ghitti and Val Camonica. The installation ofLast Supper it is a vibrant testimony to this: the public of the Diocesan Museum will be able to admire it in the room that leads into the monumental Refectory, in dialogue with a seventeenth-century fresco that represents the last banquet of Jesus with the apostles (from 20 December 2022).

The 2023 exhibitions
Four exhibitions will enliven Brescia Capital of Culture in 2023 at the Diocesan Museum. It starts on January 12 with an exhibition to touch, even before looking at. The protagonists are the life-size marble sculptures that the blind artist Felice Tagliaferri has created inspired by some milestones of the Italian tradition. There will be the Christ revealedmade with the famous in mind Veiled Christ of the Sansevero Chapel in Naples, together with the Piety overturned, which reinterprets Michelangelo’s Vatican masterpiece: in Tagliaferri’s work, for once it is the son who holds the exhausted mother in his arms. There Holy Family with fragile child, on the other hand, inserts a down child of about seven into the traditional Christian representation. The exhibition opens on Path in the dark of the Diocesan Museum, an amplified sensory experience for all visitors.

Sonia Costantini, Blue Annunciation, 2003. Acrylics and oil on canvas + three wooden panels I Courtesy Diocesan Museum of Brescia

In the project Inhabit eternity of the artist Sonya Costantiniinstead, ancient Russian icons will dialogue with the contemporary aesthetics of a series of monochrome paintings, exploring the experience of the sacred and the idea of ​​the absolute in painting (scheduled from 16 January to 26 March).

In March, a major exhibition will reveal the religious side of one of the most important Lombard masters active in the Brescia area, Giacomo Ceruti known as the Pitocchetto. Known above all for his portraits and colorful genre scenes, the eighteenth-century painter also distinguished himself in sacred art. Over the centuries many poor quality paintings have been wrongly attributed to him. At the Diocesan Museum of Brescia Sacred Ceruti and painting between Ricci and Tiepolo will clarify by showing a selection of canvases chosen with attention and scientific rigor, to be admired in comparison with the best of religious painting produced in this area in the same period.

Giacomo Ceruti called il Pitocchetto, Sant’Apollonio blesses Saints Faustino and Giovita. Bione, Church of Saints Faustino and Giovita. Photo BAMS – Photo Rodella

The contemporary will again take center stage in the second half of the year with the exhibition Tightrope walkers by Stefano Bombardieri, Alessandro Montanari and Cinzia Bevilacqua: sculpture, photography and painting united in the story of the unstable human experience after the pandemic.

The project Keepers of Beautyfinally, he will reveal the numerous art treasures hidden in the churches and convents of Brescia and its province. Young graduates trained for the occasion will accompany visitors along special itineraries, to discover jewels such as the little church of Santa Maria della Neve in the village of Pisogne, where a marvelous cycle of sixteenth-century frescoes by Romanino is still visible.

Anonymous, Annunciation of the Royal Doors, 19th century, Russia. Tempera on wood I Courtesy Diocesan Museum of Brescia

Read also:
• Brescia Capital of Culture. All exhibitions of 2023
• The great painting of Bergamo and Brescia is staged at Palazzo Martinengo
• On the streets of the Renaissance. Brescia between art and sacredness
• Capital of Culture 2023: Brescia and Bergamo unveil the “Illuminated City”