"Il genio di Milano. Crocevia delle arti dalla Fabbrica del Duomo al Novecento" exhibition in Milan

Gallerie d'Italia - Milano presents the exhibition “Il genio di Milano. Crocevia delle arti dalla Fabbrica del Duomo al Novecento”, open to the public from 23 November 2024 to 16 March 2025, in partnership with the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana and curated by Marco Carminati, Fernando Mazzocca, Alessandro Morandotti, Paola Zatti.

Milan, an inclusive city by vocation, has always been open to innovation by foreign artists who found great opportunities in the city to fulfil their ambitions, thanks also to visionary patronage and collecting.

From the Middle Ages, when the activity of the great Duomo building site was led by German craftsmen, to the Renaissance, strongly characterised by the presence of Leonardo da Vinci, via the ensuing seasons that witnessed the extraordinary flourishing of collecting and cultural exchanges with cities like Venice, and the establishment of the myth of the “moral capital”, Milan reached the beginning of the Twentieth century as a city-workshop, open and receptive to the most significant external contributions for the construction of Modernity.

Then, in the Twentieth century, when a system of galleries and exhibitions unique in Italy was attracting great personalities from all over the world to the Lombard capital, Milan's artistic reality was characterised by the fruitful relationship between local craftsmen and those who brought new experiments from other parts of Italy, which were decisive in updating local tastes and traditions.

The exhibition, divided into ten chronological sections, will be accompanied by a prestigious catalogue containing essays and scientific datasheets that will offer an up-to-date account of the studies on the themes and works on display.

The exhibition explores Milan's role as a point of reference for art and innovation, starting at the end of the Middle Ages with the Duomo building site, through the Renaissance with the works and inventions of Leonardo da Vinci and the patronage of the Sforza family, to the influence of Cardinal Federico Borromeo and the works of Sebastiano Ricci and Giambattista Tiepolo, who opened up new horizons in the Milanese art scene in the Eighteenth century.

The itinerary continues into Neoclassicism with works that bear witness to the work of architect Giuseppe Piermarini, to whom we owe the extraordinary transformation of the city into a modern metropolis, moving on to the Romanticism of Francesco Hayez and the Divisionism of Segantini and Previati, the Futurism of Boccioni and the avant-garde movements promoted by gallery owners such as Margherita Sarfatti, who brought Milan back to the fore from the Nineteenth century until the post-war period, when Lucio Fontana definitively strengthened the city's role as the capital of contemporary art.

Under the High Patronage of the President of the Republic.