New show explores Raphael's never-ending appeal

(ANSA) - Rome, February 1 - A new exhibition at Bergamo's Modern and Contemporary Art Gallery explores the world of Raphael from the 1400s to the modern day, in "Raphael and the Echo of the Myth".
    The show, which opened January 27 and runs through May 6, is a project of the Accademia Carrara Foundation and curated by Maria Cristina Rodeschini, Emanuela Daffra and Giacinto Di Pietrantonio.
    It is divided into various sections dedicated to the master and the influence he has had across the centuries on generations of successive artists.
    About 60 works from national and international museums and private collections from around the world make up the exhibition, 14 of which are signed by Raphael.
    Works by "masters" such as Giovanni Santi; his father, Perugino; Pintoricchio and Luca Signorelli tell the story of Raphael's artistic training and his initial cultural and stylistic points of reference.
    The section dedicated to the works of Raphael shows how the artist, at the age of 17 in the year 1500, was already being defined "magister" and embarking upon a particularly lively period of production, through the year 1505.
    The show brings together for the first time in Europe three components of the Pala Colonna (from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Gallery of London, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston), and three components of the Pala del Beato Nicola da Tolentino (from the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Palazzo Reale National Museum in Pisa).
    The artist's "echo" is shown through the works that clearly influenced artists who came later, such as the famed "Fornarina" ("The Portrait of a Young Woman", on loan from the National Galleries of Ancient Art of Rome - Palazzo Barberini).
    The oil-on-wood painting, from the year 1520, served as an endless source of inspiration for many 19th-century artists, including Giuseppe Sogni, Francesco Gandolfi, Felice Schiavoni and Cesare Mussini. In addition to the exhibition catalog edited by Marsilio Electa, the show has a dedicated website (raffaellesco.it) and a substantial programme of related activities and educational events.
    photo: the Esterhazy Madonna