Bologna and the Emilia-Romagna region launch Guerciniani Itineraries.

The Municipality of Bologna, the Metropolitan City of Bologna, the Municipality of Cento, and the Region of Emilia-Romagna, together with the Bologna Modena Tourist Territory, the Pianura Tourism Table and Bologna Welcome, are promoting the Itinerari Guerciniani project dedicated to Giovanni Francesco Barbieri known as Guercino (Cento, 1591 - Bologna, 1666).

Conceived to accompany the reopening to the public in November 2023 of the Pinacoteca Civica in Cento, made unfit for use by the earthquake events of 2012, with the remounting of Guercino’s works preserved there, and the temporary exhibition Guercino in the studio set up at the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Bologna from October 28, 2023, the initiative includes a series of itineraries, cultural connections and tourist destinations, aimed at various types of audiences.

The project aims to strengthen cultural collaborations within the metropolitan museum system of Bologna and the regional museum system of Emilia-Romagna, involving the many territorial realities that preserve works by Guercino, his workshop and artists who were influenced by his works.

In addition to the Guercino Itineraries promoted in the regional territory, from October 8 to November 26, 2023 the exhibition Guercino and his pupils will be held in the Sala Urbana of the Collezioni Comunali d’Arte. From ’heads of character’ to portraits, promoted by the Bologna Civic Museums of Ancient Art Sector and curated by Silvia Battistini. The exhibition aims to explore some aspects of the master’s production and the artists who trained with him and his workshop. It aims to compare works by Guercino executed at different periods of his career, in which the subjects have such distinctive physiognomies as to present themselves as ’heads of character’: the Trinity (1616) and Lucretia (c. 1644) from the UniCredit Collection at Palazzo Magnani in Bologna and St. John the Baptist (c. 1630) from the Municipal Art Collections.

In addition to these works, there will be an exhibition of portraits made by collaborators and pupils of later generations: by Benedetto Gennari the Younger, Portrait of a Maiden (Ippolita Obizzi?) (c. 1692) from the Collezioni Comunali d’Arte, and by his brother Cesare Gennari, Portrait of Dorotea Fiorenza Saccenti (c. 1660) and Portrait of Francesco Maria Dal Sole (c. 1665) from the ASP Città di Bologna: The Picture Gallery of Palazzo Rossi Poggi Marsili.

In addition, with three works preserved at the Collezioni Comunali d’Arte, a section is devoted to the fame achieved by Guercino’s paintings: St. Jerome the Penitent, by one of his close collaborator and emulator Bartolomeo Gennari, from the collection of Agostino Sieri Pepoli; the eighteenth-century small-format copies of the famous Vestizione di san Guglielmo, the original of which had been in the church of San Gregorio e Siro in Bologna since 1620, probably entered the public collections thanks to Luca Sgarzi’s bequest in 1850; and Flora, from the collection of Pier Ignazio Rusconi, taken from the painting commissioned in 1642 by Giovanni Orio of Rimini and now preserved in Rome at Palazzo Rospigliosi.

The exhibition also aims to provide an opportunity to delve into the collecting history of some of the museum’s works and testify to the lively world of art lovers in 19th-century Bologna.

Image: Guercino, Trinity (1616; oil on canvas; Bologna, UniCredit collection at Palazzo Magnani)

Bologna and the Emilia-Romagna region launch Guerciniani Itineraries.

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