The exhibition proposes, through paintings, engravings, drawings, reports, satirical writings, booklets, theoretical printed works and periodicals, preserved in the Ambrosiana Library and Pinacoteca, a path on representation in the Napoleonic era in Milan.

Among the curiosities, the gloves used by Napoleon during the battle of Waterloo.

As part of the celebrations promoted throughout Italy by the Napoleonic Bicentennial Committee 1821-2021, the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan, in collaboration with the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, hosts, from 5 October 2021 to 23 January 2022, the exhibition NAPOLEONE ALL'AMBROSIANA. PATHS OF REPRESENTATION.

The exhibition, curated by Francesca Barbieri and Alessandra Mignatti, with Annamaria Cascetta in the role of scientific director, presents engravings, drawings, reports, satirical writings, booklets, periodicals and theoretical printed works from the heritage of the Ambrosiana Library as well as assets from the collections of paintings and relics of the Pinacoteca.

The varied material allows an in-depth study of the representation which, in its broadest anthropological meaning, constitutes a privileged observatory on the cultural transformations that the city of Milan experienced in the Napoleonic era. How does the new power appear, or rather 'represent'? How is it perceived and in turn represented?

The review analyzes various fields of investigation, such as the development of the feast and other forms of celebration from the Cisalpine Republic to the Kingdom of Italy, or the organization of urban space which reveals, between ephemeral and permanent structures, an arrangement that is the result of a profound rethinking. The theatrical performances, moreover, with their creative ferment, are placed in dialogue with the great events of the time and participate in the construction of the new citizen.