Giovanni Bellini: Madonna di Alzano

This year, the customary appointment with L’Ospite illustre event welcomes Giovanni Bellini’s Madonna con il Bambino (Madonna and Child) – known as the Madonna di Alzano – from the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo. It is an exceptional loan, since the painting has very rarely left its home due to its extraordinary quality.

The painting centres on the intense and prophetic dialogue between the two figures it portrays, leaving contemplation to the viewer.

It dates from around 1487, in the middle of Bellini’s painting career when he adopted a soft and transparent style, consisting of figures with soft and glowing edges and light liquid strokes. Among the different interpretations of this theme, this painting of the Madonna and Child stands out for its vivid, calm tone, fostered by games of light and the clear countryside in the background, rendered in such minute detail to recall a Flemish composition. The intense and sweet gaze of the Virgin Mary is without that veil of sadness that marks other paintings tackling the same theme.
The loan of the painting is closely linked to the concurrent exhibition on Andrea Mantegna at Palazzo Madama, Turin, enriching the context of family and artistic connections
between the two maestros.

Held in the Skyscraper’s Spazio Trentacinque exhibition space, it is Intesa Sanpaolo’s gift to the city of Turin for the 2019 Christmas festivities.