Renaissance

Renaissance Section at the PInacoteca Civica in Como.

Located to the right of the Como Art Gallery entrance, the Renaissance Section occupies three rooms on the ground floor of the eastern wing of the Palazzo Volpi. In the central hall there are some paintings belonging to the Sixteenth-century collection of portraits of famous men, by Paolo Giovio, a famous writer from Como who is also responsible for the modern concept of MUSEUMS. Of the 400 original portraits of the collection, the Museum retains only a nucleus of 40, received through two donations: the legacy of Rovelli in 1966 and the bequest Acchiappati donated in 1972. The room contains also four stained glass, of which one is coming from the rose window of the Cathedral of Como and two rings from the church of San Giovanni in Torno.

The two side rooms, respectively, host prestigious works from private collections and significant evidence of Renaissance artistic production in the city of Como. Of great interest: a painting on a panel from the mid-Fifteenth century depicting the face of the Virgin (Virgo advocata) attributed to Jacomart and Pere Joan Reixach; a Sixteenth-century table by Ambrosius Benson depicting a Country Concert; a tapestry with the Birth of the Virgin owned by the Cathedral church of Como and a miniated Libro d'Ore in Milan.

The Lake Como Renaissance is documented by a painting on a panel by Giovanni Andrea de Magistris with the Nativity and by the fresco of the Madonna with Child among the Saints. Cosma and Damiano from 1515, the Master of the SS. Cosma and Damiano coming from the homonymous church.

The Lariano (Lake Como) Renaissance is documented by works of painting and sculpture. A painting on a panel by Giovanni Andrea de Magistris depicting the Nativity and the recomposition of the apse decoration coming from the church of the SS. Cosma e Damiano, completed in the second decade of the 16th century Madonna and Child among the Saints Cosma and Damiano.
The numerous sculptures exhibited document the Rodaran stylistic matrix, named after the two sculptors who had been active for forty years, from the end of the fifteenth century until 1526, in the construction site of Como Cathedral, brothers Tommaso and Giacomo Rodari.