From October 16, 2020 to January 17, 2021, the exhibition “Et in Arcadia Ego” will take place at the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Ferrara, an exhibition dedicated to Guercino's painting of the same name, the second appointment in the cycle of exhibitions dossier Look at me! They are a story ... made thanks to the collaboration between the Estensi Galleries and the DiDiArt Laboratory of the Department of Humanities of the University of Ferrara. After the exhibition on Portaroli by Cristoforo Munari known as the Pitocchetto from the Pinacoteca di Brera, the painting by Guercino (Cento, 1591 - Bologna, 1666) from the Barberini Corsini National Galleries of Ancient Art in Rome arrives in Ferrara.

The painting. The painting was probably made between 1618 and 1622, years in which the young painter came into contact with Venetian and Emilian painting which profoundly influenced his style and shows two young shepherds while observing an unusual element: a human skull. It is the latter, leaning on a wall ruined by time, who seems to address them by pronouncing the words engraved in the stone: Et in Arcadia ego, a Latin phrase that can be translated as I (am) also in Arcadia. With this work, Arcadia, a mythical region of Ancient Greece, considered a rural and idyllic place, a symbol of the happy first age of mankind, seems to become part of the domain of Death.