Andrea Mantegna. Rivivere l’antico, costruire il moderno

Recreating the ancient, building the modern: the Northern Italian Renaissance epitomises a period in art history when classical antiquity was blended harmoniously with the realism of perspective and depictions of the human figure. Andrea Mantegna (Isola di Carturo 1431 – Mantua 1506) is one of the most important artists of the Italian Renaissance, and without doubt one of the greatest exponents of the period. From 12 December 2019 to 4 May 2020, Turin will be hosting an exhibition on Mantegna in the monumental rooms of Palazzo Madama, supported by Fondazione Torino Musei and Intesa Sanpaolo, and organised by Civita Mostre e Musei.

From his prodigious early beginnings to his role as artist to the court of the Gonzagas, visitors will be able to follow the painter’s fortunes through six sections charting six different moments in his career, some of them less well-known such as his relations with the worlds of academia and architecture.

The exhibition will be preceded – and integrated – with spectacular multimedia projections, giving visitors an immersive experience into the artist’s life and presenting those masterpieces which cannot go on display due to their fragile state of conservation.

It also includes artworks by other leading names from the Northern Italian Renaissance: key pieces by Mantegna’s contemporaries Donatello, Paolo Uccello, Antonello da Messina, Giovanni Bellini, Pisanello, Cosmè Tura, Ercole de’ Roberti, Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi (“l’Antico”) and Correggio will go on display in the setting of Palazzo Madama’s Piano Nobile. Chosen by a prestigious international scientific committee, they will be on loan from some of the world’s most important collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the Musée du Louvre and the Musée Jacquemart André, Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of New York, the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna, the Staatliche Museum, Berlin, and numerous Italian collections such as the Uffizi Gallery, the Pinacoteca Civica del Castello Sforzesco, the Poldi Pezzoli Museum, Milan, the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo, the Museo Antoniano and Musei Civici, Padua, the Fondazione Cini and Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice, the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, the Musei Civici, Pavia, the Galleria Sabauda and Museo di Antichità, Turin, the Musei Civici, Seminario Arcivescovile and Basilica di Sant’Andrea, Mantua.sei Civici di Padova, la Fondazione Cini e le Gallerie dell’Accademia di Venezia, il Museo di Capodimonte di Napoli, i Musei Civici di Pavia, la Galleria Sabauda e il Museo di Antichità di Torino, i Musei Civici, il Seminario Arcivescovile e la Basilica di Sant’Andrea a Mantova.