GC Magazine - Galleria Cavour

Art and literature on show at the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Bologna

1 January - 2025

Guido Reni - Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna

Ph: Guido Reni, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Until 16 February 2025, the prestigious Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna, just a few steps from Galleria Cavour, is hosting a surprising exhibition in the Salone degli Incamminati. Entitled “The Atlanta Fable. Guido Reni and the Poets” and is curated by Giulia Iseppi, Raffaella Morselli and Maria Luisa Pacelli.

It is an exhibition itinerary in which the works of important painters are narrated and exalted by the verses of enlightened men of letters of the time who, precisely through their words, made the masterpieces of talents such as Artemisia Gentileschi, Ludovico Carracci, Agostino and, of course, Reni himself, even more famous and immortal. Figurative art and literature thus meet under the watchful eye of visitors: enchanted by the images but also by the words.

A perfect example of how poets were inspired by painters and vice versa could be “The Massacre of the Innocents“, the work by Guido Reni preserved in the Pinacoteca di Bologna itself, to which Giovan Battista Marino dedicated splendid descriptive verses in his “Galeriaof 1620, giving posterity a magnificent and immortal description. In addition to enhancing the city’s rich heritage with epic verse, the exhibition shows us that words and images are a powerful narrative medium for capturing an important moment of cultural fervour in our city at the turn of the 16th and early 17th century.

Art described with art and words explained with images: through this link between two worlds, the professional relationships, friendships and cultural exchanges that made Bologna and its academies great and illustrious in the past emerge clearly. Among the works on display, special mention must be made of “Judith with the Head of Holofernes” by Lavinia Fontana, “Iole” by Ludovico Carracci and, of course, the two versions of “Atlanta and Hippomenes” by Guido Reni, respectively on loan from the Prado Museum in Madrid and the Capodimonte Museum in Naples.

An exhibition that we suggest visiting because the beauty of the paintings in verse is a gift for the eyes and the heart and offers a valuable perspective on the cultural past of Bologna, at the time second only to Rome, within the Papal States, as a fervid workshop of ideas and creativity.

Ph: Guido Reni, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons