The exhibition Myth. Gods and Heroes celebrates the 20th anniversary of the opening of Vicenza's Palazzo Leoni Montanari

From April 6 to July 14, 2019, the Gallerie d’Italia - Palazzo Leoni Montanari in Vicenza will host the exhibition, curated by Fernando Mazzocca, Federica Giacobello and Agata Keran, entitled Myth. Gods and Heroes.

An exhibition celebrating 20 years of opening to the public of the Vicenza palace and its art collections, which has been conducting intense cultural activities since May 1999. A review that aims to rediscover the identity of the palace, through the studies and enhancement activities pursued so far, and to analyze classical mythology through the iconographic path of the palace’s pictorial and stucco decorations.

Starting from the depiction of myths and heroic characters in antiquity, the exhibition project highlights mythological themes over the centuries, from Greece, Magna Graecia and Rome up to seventeenth-century Classicism and Neoclassicism.
The main floor of the palace will host more than sixty works, including many masterpieces on loan such as Giovan Battista Tiepolo’s extraordinary Maecenas Presents the Liberal Arts to Augustus, from theHermitage in St. Petersburg. Divided into eight sections, the exhibition compares, following various themes, the gods, heroes, myths represented in the decorative apparatus of the palace with those depicted on the works on display: Apollo, Athena, Marsyas, Niobe, Alexander the Great, Hercules, Achilles, will be the protagonists of a compelling journey through time and architectural space, in an incessant cross-reference on the figurative and iconological level between the pictorial subjects of the decorations and the works on display. Painted vases from the Intesa Sanpaolo collection dialogue with sculptures and frescoes of Greco-Roman art, analyzing the production and figurative aspects, the influence and translation into image of the most famous subjects, and the interpretations proposed for the same myth by painters and sculptors; likewise, the pictorial works of Pompeo Batoni, Ignazio and Filippo Collino, Francesco Hayez, Louis Gauffier, Laurent Pecheux, Camillo Pacetti, Luigi Basiletti, Francesco and Luigi Righetti, Giambattista Tiepolo, and Cristoforo Unterberger bear witness to how the ancient was regarded as a universal model of beauty and moral virtue in the neoclassical era.

“The year 2019 marks the twentieth birthday of the first museum project to which our Bank gave birth in 1999, in Vicenza: the first location of the Gallerie d’Italia. The decision to transform this palace into a museum, into a place of art and culture, was meant to be a gesture of openness to the citizenry. It bears witness to a deep-rooted sense of civic responsibility, which suggests that we should not withhold with jealous reserve the architectural and artistic treasures we own, but rather share them with the public and spread awareness of them. The celebrations will begin with a major exhibition that will celebrate, together, the palace’s amazing decorative cycles and the ancient ceramics in our collection. Subsequent initiatives will focus on another important core collection housed in the museum, Russian icons. And masterpieces of art from important international museums will come to Vicenza as part of ”The Illustrious Guest.“ All this is to strongly emphasize the same cultural and civic vocation with which we opened the doors of this palace to the public in 1999, and the growing commitment of our Bank to ensure, in the heart of Vicenza, a living and pulsating center for the promotion of art, culture and beauty, at the service of the city,” says Intesa Sanpaolo President Giovanni Bazoli.

The exhibition, under the patronage of the Municipality of Vicenza, is organized in partnership with the National Archaeological Museum of Naples and the National Archaeological Museum of Reggio Calabria, which are lending major works from Pompeii and several sites in Magna Graecia.

For info: www.gallerieditalia.com

Hours: Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Mondays.

Tickets: Full 5 euros, reduced 3 euros. Free for convention members, schools, under 18s, Intesa Sanpaolo Group customers and employees. Free Sunday, April 7 and every first Sunday of the month.

Image: Loggia di Ercole seen from the entrance hall. Intesa Sanpaolo Artistic Heritage Archive ©Valter Maino

The exhibition Myth. Gods and Heroes celebrates the 20th anniversary of the opening of Vicenza's Palazzo Leoni Montanari

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