The Palazzo Cini Gallery

On 8 April the Palazzo Cini Gallery will re-open to the public, the stately residence on the Grand Canal with its art collection belonged to Vittorio Cini, thank to a partnership with Assicurazioni Generali. In this refined, intimed setting, in addition to the important exhibition on the second floor Rediscovered Masterpieces from the Vittorio Cini collection, A Guest at the Palace, an initiative successfully launched in 2014, will continued that is the result of significant collaboration between the Fondazione Giorgio Cini and major Italian and international galleries and museums.

The permanent collection of the Gallery will thus be enhanced, from the day of the opening until 6 June 2016, with a remarkable loan: the work by Andrea Mantegna (Isola di Carturo, c. 1431- Mantua, 1506) depicting Saint Mark, courtesy of the Städel Museum, Frankfurt. Painted with tempera and casein on canvas, the work is associated with the very early Paduan years of the young Mantegna, when he was working on the Ovetari Chapel in the Church of the Eremitani, from 1448 to 1449, in collaboration with Nicolò Pizolo. Here we find the unsurpassed quality of the young painter destined to become the founding father of “Antiquarian” painting in the Po Valley in the 15th century. The legacy of Squarcione comes through in the realistic fine rendering of details, combined with the solid massive perspective, a constant feature in Mantegna’s art: absorbed in divine meditation, the saint is framed by a classically composed marble window. The noble, restrained gravity of the spatial illusionism – underscored by a cartellino attached below the sill with the artist’s signature and mention of Saint Mark – makes the Frankfurt painting a firm reference point for the early years of one of the most ingenious Renaissance painters.