Art anticipates the times, breaks down borders, brings together territories, traditions, spirits and cultures that are apparently or geographically very distant. It has always happened and it happened in the seventeenth century in Bergamo with Naples. Naples to Bergamo. A look at the 17th century in the De Vito collection and in the city wants to tell this closeness, enhancing it.

The exhibition, curated by Elena Fumagalli with Nadia Bastogi , reveals to the public the extraordinary link between Bergamo and seventeenth-century Neapolitan painting, of which a significant chapter was written in the city thanks to the role of Luca Giordano (Naples, 1634 – 1705) and of his pupil Nicola Malinconico (Naples, 1663 – 1726) in the decoration of Santa Maria Maggiore and the Cathedral.

The exhibition explores the wonder of painting, between naturalism and baroque, excesses and contradictions, through over forty works , with specially made restorations and new studies . The important nucleus of paintings, coming from the Giuseppe and Margaret De Vito Foundation , is joined by unpublished canvases from the Accademia Carrara collection and works on loan from city churches and the Bergamo area.

From Battistello Caracciolo, an early Neapolitan follower of Caravaggio, to the classicism of Massimo Stanzione, from the tenebrism of Jusepe de Ribera to the grandeur of the baroque painting of Mattia Preti, Luca Giordano - present with more than twenty works - and his pupil Nicola Malinconico.