The Cassa di Risparmio Foundation in Bologna, in collaboration with Genus Bononiae, presents for the first time to the public an exhibition featuring the main works of the Bolognese nineteenth century belonging to its own art and history collections.

The exhibition, entitled From Felice Giani to Luigi Serra – The Nineteenth Century in the collections of the Cassa di Risparmio Foundation in Bologna, scheduled at Palazzo Fava. Palazzo delle Esposizioni from March 21 to June 30, curated by Angelo Mazza, is part of the project Painting in Bologna in the long Nineteenth Century | 1796 – 1915, an initiative promoted by the Civic Museums Sector of Bologna | Civic Museum of the Risorgimento which involves fourteen city exhibition venues in outlining a path in Bolognese painting from the Napoleonic era to the beginning of the Great War.

Structured in 6 thematic sections, it presents about 30 artists and over 100 works, including paintings, drawings, watercolors, sculptures, and engravings, in addition to the Minghetti majolica tiles belonging to the Duke of Montpensier. These are significant collections to focus on the activity of some of the great protagonists of Bolognese nineteenth-century painting, whose creations effectively illustrate the main productions of the time. Visitors will have the opportunity to admire a selection of works by Felice Giani and Pelagio Palagi, Clemente Albèri and Pietro Fancelli, Antonio Basoli and Giacomo De Maria, up to Luigi Busi, Alessandro Guardassoni, Giovanni Masotti, Luigi Serra, and others.

The exhibition begins in the Giasone Room of the Noble Floor of Palazzo Fava, where the large plaster of the Penitent Magdalene (1806-1813 ca) by Antonio Canova is placed in the center. This first section presents a collection of figure paintings created by artists active in Bologna between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, at the time of the collapse of the Ancien Régime and trained at the Clementine Academy, up to the works of the decades of the Restoration and united Italy with the masters linked to the Academy of Fine Arts and the Venturoli College. The large canvas by Gaetano Gandolfi (S. Matteo della Decima 1734 - Bologna 1802), Death of Socrates from 1782 - whose subject is already a harbinger of new times - and the small oil painting The Madonna, the Child, and Saint John by Felice Giani (San Sebastiano Curone 1758 - Rome 1823) are works that already show a clear contrast between tradition and modernity. But it is with the portraits of Pietro Fancelli (Bologna 1764 - Pesaro 1850), which intertwine the lessons of the Clementine Academy with neoclassical modernity, and of Pelagio Palagi (Bologna 1775 - Turin 1860) - of which there are also works in the exhibition with scenes of a historical nature - that taste begins to more easily break away from the conditioning of eighteenth-century academic culture. Also in the field of portraiture, Clemente Albèri (Bologna 1803-1864), of whom various works are exhibited, is represented by the Portrait of Giuseppe Gaetano Mazzacorati (a prominent figure in the cultural, scientific, and economic life of the city), balancing between neoclassical influences and early romantic inflections. Also noteworthy is the work of Alessandro Guardassoni (Bologna 1819-1888), who works on the models of Bolognese painting of the seventeenth century starting from the masterpieces of Guido Reni, up to the figuration of Luigi Busi (Bologna 1837-1884), with the painting Nicolò de’ Lapi before the punishment, which thematically fits into the Lombard historical romanticism trend already started in the '20s thanks to the Milanese works of Pelagio Palagi and Francesco Hayez. The section concludes with the works of Luigi Serra (Bologna 1846-1888), whose apprenticeship is similar to that of Busi and takes place between the Venturoli College and the Academy of Fine Arts, and leads to the early twentieth century with Felice Vezzani (Novellara 1856 - Paris 1930) and Giovanni Masotti (Bologna, 1873-1915), of whom the Portrait of Alberto Caburazzi dressed as Garibaldi and Prelude are exhibited.