Titian and Lotto in Ancona, two masterpieces in dialogue at Pinacoteca Podesti

From Feb. 14, 2026, the Pinacoteca Civica “Francesco Podesti” in Ancona opens its halls to two exceptionally important loans that bring into direct dialogue two absolute protagonists of the Italian Renaissance: Titian Vecellio and Lorenzo Lotto. TheMalchiostro Annunciation and the Portrait of the Crossbowman Battista di Rocca Contrada become the focus of two separate study exhibitions, conceived as opportunities for scientific study and close comparison with pivotal works of art history. The two exhibitions, set up in different parts of the museum at 17 Via Ciriaco Pizzecolli, are entitled Titian 1520. The Gozzi Altarpiece from Ancona and The Annunciation from Treviso Cathedral and Lorenzo Lotto. A Face for the City. The Mastro Batista balestrier de la Rocha Contrada. The opening is accompanied by a strong signal of accessibility: on Feb. 14 and 15, admission will be free for all.

“These two exhibitions represent a moment of very high scientific and symbolic value for the Pinacoteca and for the city of Ancona,” says Marta Paraventi, councilor for culture of the City of Ancona. “Welcoming works by Titian and Lorenzo Lotto at a time when the city in the running as a finalist for the nomination as Italian Capital of Culture 2028 means strengthening the role of our Pinacoteca as a place of research, dialogue and cultural production. It is a choice that confirms the Administration’s commitment to considering culture not as an ancillary element, but as a structural investment for the city’s future.” The initiative is part of the program linked to Ancona’s candidacy as Italian Capital of Culture 2028 and brings the Pinacoteca to host four exhibitions at the same time. Alongside the two focuses on Titian and Lotto, Carlo Maratti and Engraving, curated by Simonetta Prosperi Valenti Rodinò and Stefano Papetti as part of the celebrations for the fourth centenary of the artist’s birth, and until May 4, 2026 Umberto Grati - Spin Off, dedicated to the recently deceased Ancona illustrator and painter, are in fact open to visitors until March 15, 2026.

The study exhibition dedicated to Titian stems from a special circumstance: the temporary absence of the famous Pala Gozzi, which left for Pieve di Cadore on the occasion of the exhibition Titian and the Landscape. From Cadore to the Lagoon: the Gozzi Altarpiece and the Submergence of the Pharaoh, which opens the celebrations for the 450th anniversary of the master’s death in his native land and takes place during the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics. Until March 29, 2026, the Pinacoteca is thus offering a focus on the Annunciation from the Malchiostro Chapel of the Cathedral of St. Peter the Apostle in Treviso, dated 1520 as the Gozzi Altarpiece, a date that emerged precisely thanks to a recent restoration.

The operation was made possible by the collaboration between the City of Ancona, the Magnifica Comunità di Cadore, the City of Pieve di Cadore, the Titian and Cadore Study Center Foundation and the Diocese of Treviso, which granted the loan, with organizational coordination by Villaggio Globale International, the support of DBA Group and the collaboration of the Ministry of Culture, the General Directorate of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape and the Superintendencies responsible for the area.

In place of the Gozzi Altarpiece, a 1:1 scale reproduction is visible in the Pinacoteca, obtained from the digital twin created by mAIndh, the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory for Cultural Heritage of the Università Politecnica delle Marche directed by Professor Paolo Clini. A technological solution that allows the exhibition route to remain legible even during the absence of the original. For Easter 2026 the Gozzi Altarpiece will return to Ancona and will be exhibited for the first time together with Titian’sMalchiostro Annunciation and Crucifixion, offering a direct comparison between coeval and profoundly innovative works. Between April and June a series of lectures, produced in collaboration with the Titian and Cadore Study Center Foundation, will accompany the event with talks by the most authoritative scholars of the Venetian master.

TheMalchiostro Annunciation, whose handling is also linked to the upcoming restoration work in the Treviso chapel financed by Save Venice, represents a crucial step in Titian’s research. With this work, along with the Crucifixion and the Gozzi Altarpiece, Titian revolutionizes the traditional iconography of the Annunciation: the Virgin is placed in the foreground and facing the viewer, while the archangel Gabriel recedes along a spatial diagonal. In the background, in the center of the composition, kneels the patron Broccardo Malchiostro, plenipotentiary of the humanist bishop Bernardo de’ Rossi, remembered by an inscription in the lower right corner. A solution of extraordinary modernity that did not escape Lotto, who reworked it in theAnnunciation of Recanati.

In parallel, until April 16, 2026, the Pinacoteca is hosting the Portrait of the Crossbowman Battista di Rocca Contrada, from the Capitoline Museums. The work dialogues with the Altarpiece of the Halberd already in the permanent collection and allows an in-depth look at one of the most significant portraits of Lotto’s last season, contextualized in the city of Ancona where the artist was working. The event is promoted by the City of Ancona and the Capitoline Cultural Heritage Superintendency, with the support of the Marche Region and territorial partners.

The painting, catalogued in 1767 as a work by Giorgione and traced to Lotto in the late 19th century by Adolfo Venturi and Giovanni Morelli, with identification of the character proposed by Gustavo Frizzoni in 1894, represents one of the highest expressions of the artist’s portraiture. The protagonist does not pose conventionally, but seems caught in a moment of psychological suspension, as if caught in his own thoughts. The crossbow is not a mere attribute, but an emblem of a civic function linked to discipline and responsibility. The light, sober and non-idealizing, brings out the face from the darkness, restoring a complex identity, a mirror of a sixteenth-century society founded on skills and reputation.

With these two exhibitions, the Podesti Art Gallery wants to reaffirm its vocation as a living and authoritative museum, capable of dialoguing with national institutions and research centers, and to affirm a strategy that considers culture as the infrastructure of the future, with proposals that aim to transform the Art Gallery into a propelling center of the city’s cultural life, in the sign of a continuous dialogue between research, heritage and contemporaneity.

Titian and Lotto in Ancona, two masterpieces in dialogue at Pinacoteca Podesti

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