Between the 1840s and the 1920s, historical Italian art, from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, had a strong impact on British visual culture, particularly the Pre-Raphaelites. This artistic movement, born in Victorian England in the mid-nineteenth century by some rebellious artists - William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti - had the aim of renewing English painting, considered in decline due to excessively formal norms and severe imposed by the Royal Academy.

From 24 February to 30 June 2024 the Pre-Raphaelite exhibition. Modern Renaissance – directed by Gianfranco Brunelli and edited by Elizabeth Prettejohn, Peter Trippi, Francesco Parisi and Cristina Acidini with the consultancy of Tim Barringer, Stephen Calloway, Charlotte Gere, Véronique Gerard Powell and Paola Refice – through approximately 300 works including paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, furniture, ceramics, glass and metal works, fabrics, medals, illustrated books, manuscripts and jewels will tell this story alongside for the first time, thanks to the generous loans granted by European museums - in particular English and Italian - and American, a substantial representation of Italian models, including works by old masters, to British works; but also works by Italian artists of the late nineteenth century inspired by British precursors.

Pre-Raphaelitism - whose starting date can be set with certainty at 1848, but whose conclusion is not easy to identify because it fades into the decadent and symbolist movements - was not a reactionary return to the styles of the past but a visionary project capable of both making the works that emerged from it were something decidedly modern, both to restore strength and presence to the Italian tradition. In fact, the Pre-Raphaelites drew on a wide range of influences and historical elements, at different times they were inspired by Venetian Gothic art and architecture, by Cimabue, by Giotto, as well as by Renaissance masters, such as Botticelli and Michelangelo, finally turning with equal enthusiasm to the 16th century Venetian art of Veronese and Titian.