This room is dedicated to portraits by Bergamo’s most important painter, Vittore Ghislandi, better known as Fra’ Galgario, or Friar Galgario: in 1675, at the age of barely 20, the artist joined the Order of Minims of Venice. You can see him in his renowned Autoritratto, a self-portrait from 1732, in which the elderly Ghislandi can be seen dressed in his habit, painting a young man.
Let’s now move on to “Ritratto del conte Giovanni Secco Suardo col servitore” (Portrait of Giovanni Secco Suardo with his servant):
The signature feature of Fra’ Galgario’s portraits is how deeply he is able to penetrate the psyche of his subjects. As you can see, the Count is depicted in informal style, without the typical, huge wig, with his shirt loosened, accompanied by his servant, who almost steals the scene with his sly, allusive expression.
In this room, you can see numerous paintings of musical instruments placed on a table. They are the work of the Bergamo artist Evaristo Baschenis, one of the finest Italian painters of the 17th century and considered the inventor of still life paintings on a musical theme. Immobile and in religious silence, the inexorable passing of time is marked only by the dust that settles on the instruments.
Take a moment to admire “Canal Grande da palazzo Balbi” (Grand Canal from Palazzo Balbi), a masterpiece from 1728 by the famous Venetian landscape artist Antonio Canal, known as Canaletto. The painter is able to portray the urban landscape of Venice in meticulous detail, using a precise, clearly defined light able to render every detail bright and luminous.
An interesting fact: Canaletto often used a camera obscura, a sort of forerunner of the modern-day camera. The painter placed a cloth over his head to shut out the light and trace the outline of the buildings projected on a sheet through a lens inserted in a box placed on a tripod. The drawings were thus transferred onto the canvas.
