[Image: Initial E: Saint John the Evangelist, Master B.F., early 16th century]
Whether you are in the Los Angeles area or in Italy, do not miss the chance to visit a remarkable international exhibition organized by the J. Paul Getty Museum.
“Renaissance Splendors of the Northern Italian Courts” features 25 works - illuminated manuscripts, paintings, a drawing, and an album of drawings – by artists such as Pisanello, Andrea Mantegna, Girolamo da Cremona, Taddeo Crivelli, Franco dei Russi, Cristoforo Cortese, and Stefano da Verona, drawn from the Getty Museum’s permanent collection of Italian art, and major loans from private collections.
At the same time, in the spirit of international collaboration, the Archivio Storico e Biblioteca Trivulziana inside the Castello Sforzesco in Milan will display an exhibition of the same title in their galleries, “Splendori rinascimentali nelle corti dell'Italia settentrionale”. Among the illustrious patrons who commissioned the works on display here are the families of Visconti-Sforza, Este and Gonzaga.
The Renaissance courts of northern Italy were among the wealthiest and most sophisticated in Europe. Patrons at courts in major Renaissance centers such as Milan and Ferrara valued novelty and magnificence, and commissioned innovative artists to create objects of remarkable beauty and refinement. Some of the most brilliantly and elegantly illuminated manuscripts emerged from this courtly context.
“The Getty Museum has made great strides in recent years to form a collection broadly representative of the major schools of Italian manuscript illumination, and in the past decade we have added significantly to our holdings with works by artists who were active in Lombardy, Ferrara, the Veneto, and surrounding areas,” said Timothy Potts, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. “As visitors to this exhibition will see, the relationship between these artists and their courtly patrons resulted in some of the most elegant and visually stunning illuminations of the period.”
And if you cannot be in LA or Italy, you can still get a chance to admire these works of art. As an extension of the gallery exhibition, a special online presentation has been developed in collaboration with libraries, archives and museums in the Italian cities of Ferrara, Mantua, Milan, Venice and Verona. This online exhibition, which includes select objects on display at the Getty and Italian institutions, will allow visitors to view more than 100 additional illuminated manuscripts and paintings by artists active in the northern Italian courts, as well as items owned by various patrons who lived there.
“Renaissance Splendors of the Northern Italian Courts” is on display until June 21, 2015 at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Center, in Los Angeles. For more information, click here.
"Splendori rinascimentali nelle corti dell'Italia settentrionale" is also on display until June 21 at the Archivio Storico e Biblioteca Trivulziana, Castello Sforzesco, in Milan. For more information, click here.
The online exhibition is on view here.
