Donated to the Brera Academy an album of 380 drawings by Giuseppe Bossi

Purchased and donated to theBrera Academy of Fine Arts an album containing 380 drawings by Giuseppe Bossi (Busto Arsizio, 1777 - Milan, 1815), inside which are also some sheets attributed to Andrea Appiani. The operation, presented in the Napoleonic Hall of the Academy, was managed by the EQUITA Foundation on behalf of a consortium composed of the Foundation itself along with entrepreneurs and patrons.

The album, collected in 1821 by publisher and collector Giuseppe Vallardi, constitutes an important testimony to the activity of Giuseppe Bossi, a key figure of Milanese Neoclassicism and a protagonist of Italian cultural life between the 18th and 19th centuries. Bossi, who served as secretary of the Brera Academy from 1802 to 1807, contributed profoundly to the renewal of the institution, projecting it toward a European dimension through dialogue with important intellectuals of the time. He was also responsible for the Academy’s annual exhibitions, considered during the 19th century to be among the most important events dedicated to art in Italy. Also under his leadership developed the activity of the Ornate Commission, charged with the supervision of public monuments, with functions similar to those of today’s Superintendencies.

The collection includes preparatory studies, allegorical compositions, sacred subjects, sketches and drawings inspired by classical antiquity and the great Renaissance masters. The sheets document the artist’s creative process and his remarkable technical versatility, ranging from pencil to sanguine to watercolor.

Particularly significant are the preparatory sheets to the large Michelangelo-inspired cartoon with the Deposition of Christ preserved in the chapel of the Villa of Francesco Melzi, the artist’s great patron, at Bellagio (folio 19, nos. 59, 62). One series, where the nude figure of Napoleon and the allegorical figures of Fortune and Italy appear, is an extraordinary testimony to the conception of the monumental painting of the Reconciling the Italian Republic to Napoleon (1802), preserved at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts (folios 27-28, nos. 109, 110, 111). Equally significant is the watercolor sheet that turns out to be preparatory to one of Bossi’s most significant inventions: the drawing finished as a cartoon withBodoni’s Apotheosis made in 1800 to celebrate the great typographer’s fame and preserved at the Palatina Library in Parma (folio 110, no. 390). Three sheets of the Album, initially believed to be Bossi’s by Vallardi, have been traced back to Andrea Appiani: a nude figure (sheet 70, no. 263); a drawing with the three Fates referable to one of the allegorical compositions in the monochromes of Napoleon’s Fasti in the Sala delle Cariatidi at the Royal Palace (sheet 100, no. 377); and an allegorical figure of the Fortress in one of the four lunettes frescoed in the Throne Room at the Royal Palace (sheet 106, no. 386).

The Album comes from the Venzaghi private collection (as indicated in the inscription on the title page: “GIUSEPPE BOSSI / MILANESE / These drawings executed by him / as a testimony / to the high erudition and philosophy / in the art in which he was a master / and to grateful gratitude / GIUSEPPE VALLARDI / collected / the year MDCCCXXI”).

With this acquisition, EQUITA Foundation renews its commitment to the enhancement of culture and the preservation of the national artistic heritage, supporting initiatives capable of creating collaboration between public institutions, cultural associations and private patronage. The operation also consolidates the now long-standing relationship between the Foundation and the Brera Academy: in 2026 the partnership has already given rise to the 8th edition of the EQUITA Prize for Brera, dedicated to the Academy’s students, and in the coming months it will lead to the publication of the first of three volumes dedicated to the School of Painting, produced on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the Brera Academy.

“The donation to the Brera Academy of Fine Arts will make it possible to preserve, study and enhance the volume, making it available to the scientific community, students and the public, at a particular historical moment such as the 250th anniversary of the birth of the School of Painting,” said Andrea Vismara, President of the EQUITA Foundation. “The initiative,” he added, “is a clear example of what can be done by joining forces with everyone: institutions, entrepreneurs and patrons.”

“In addition to the five hundred drawings already in the Academy’s Historical Collections, kept in Bossi’s various albums, these 380 drawings from the Vallardi album are thus reunited with those from the twin album entirely dedicated to Appiani,” said Anna Mariani, Deputy Director of the Brera Academy of Fine Arts and Head of Heritage.

“Welcoming this important corpus of 380 drawings by two great masters of Neoclassicism such as Bossi and Appiani to Brera, in the very year in which the Academy is celebrating its 250th anniversary, is very exciting and makes me happy,” commented Marco Galateri di Genola, President of the Brera Academy of Fine Arts. “This completely unknown album not only enriches our rich historical heritage but is a gesture of the silent but conscious patronage that honors Braidense history and delivers to future generations of students and scholars an inexhaustible source of inspiration and research.”

Donated to the Brera Academy an album of 380 drawings by Giuseppe Bossi

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