Room in the Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo.
During my walks in Brescia I had already passed by the Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo more than once, but I had never actually visited the museum. A bit odd perhaps, as in previous posts I have frequently referred to works in the Pinacoteca. Beautiful paintings from various Brescian churches can nowadays be admired in the museum. The Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo has been named after two men. The first is Count Paolo Tosio (1775-1842), an art collector. In 1832 he stipulated in his will that he wanted to leave his art collection to the city of Brescia. The second is Leopardo Martinengo, Count of Barco (1805-1884). Upon his death in 1884 he not only left his art collection but also his palazzo in Brescia to the city. It is this palazzo that currently serves as accommodation for the Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo. When I visited the museum in July of 2025, there were virtually no other visitors. I was therefore able to explore the artworks at leisure.
Early works
The collection starts with a number of fifteenth-century works, including the so-called polyptych of Cemmo and a panel painting of Saint George slaying the dragon. The polyptych is a work by Master Paroto, about whom next to nothing is known. He painted the work in 1447. We see the Madonna and Child and eight saints, including Saint Syrus (San Siro). According to tradition, he was the first bishop of Pavia, and the polyptych originally comes from the medieval Pieve di San Siro in Cemmo, about an hour north of Brescia. The priest who commissioned the work from Master Paroto has also been depicted, kneeling before the Virgin and Child.
Polyptych of Cemmo – Master Paroto.
After the church in Cemmo had sold the work in 1852, it was first moved to Milan and then to Paris. In 2012 it was auctioned off at the Sotheby’s and purchased by the Belgian Fondation Cab. Six years later, in 2018, the Fondation Cab gave it to the Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo on long term loan. The polyptych, which is not entirely complete, hangs in the same room as Saint George and the dragon. This peculiar work, into which gold and silver have been incorporated, comes from the church of San Giorgio in Brescia. The identity of the painter is unfortunately unknown, but it is possible he was a local master. The panel painting is dated to about 1460-1465.
Saint George and the Dragon.
Local works and Raphael
We continue our tour and arrive at works by locals painters such as Vincenzo Foppa (ca. 1427-1515) and Floriano Ferramola (ca. 1478-1528). Foppa’s Pala dei Mercanti once adorned the small church of San Faustino in Riposo and shows us the Madonna and Child with Saints Faustinus and Jovita, patron saints of Brescia. Ferramola in his turn embellished the Brescian oratory of Santa Maria in Solario and the nuns’ choir of the church of San Salvatore, but he also left secular work in the city. His falcon hunt is a detached fresco from ca. 1517-1518 which comes from a palazzo. The museum furthermore possesses work by Vincenzo Civerchio (ca. 1470-1544), a painter from Crema who was very active in Brescia. I had already previously seen one of his paintings in a church in the city.
The two most important works in the collection of the Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo hang in room IV. I am referring to two paintings by the great Raphael (1483-1520), or rather one full-fledged work and one piece of a larger work that was largely lost in the eighteenth century. The full-fledged work is a panel painting of Christ giving his blessing. Raphael painted it in 1505-1506, when he was in his early twenties. He was even younger when he completed his Pala del Beato Nicola da Tolentino, also known as Pala Baronci, in 1501. The altarpiece was made for a church in Città di Castello and was badly damaged by an earthquake in 1789. A number of fragments were preserved and are now spread all over the world. The museum in Brescia possesses a fragment featuring a beautiful angel. Both Raphaels come from the collection of Count Paolo Tosio.
Romanino and Moretto
We leave Raphael and meet two more painters from Brescia, Girolamo Romani (ca. 1484-1566) and Alessandro Bonvicino (ca. 1498-1554). The two men are better known under their nicknames, which are Romanino and Il Moretto. I especially like Moretto’s work. The painter was born in the town of Rovato between Brescia and Bergamo and learned his painting skills from the aforementioned Floriano Ferramola. He may also have been apprenticed by Vincenzo Foppa, who was also mentioned above. The museum possesses two original altarpieces by Moretto from the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie (replaced by copies in the church itself) and his famous Pala Rovelli from the church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli. The latter work was commissioned by the teacher Galeazzo Rovellio. Moretto depicted Rovellio’s pupils together with Saint Nicholas, patron saint of children.
Other works by Moretto are his Annunciation from ca. 1535-1540, which comes from Count Tosio’s legacy, and Christ and the Angel, a late work from ca. 1550. Christ and the Angel originally hung in the Duomo Vecchio in Brescia, but was later moved to the Palazzo della Loggia, the current city hall of Brescia. Like Moretto and Romanino, the painter Lattanzio Gambara (ca. 1530-1574) was also a native of Brescia. In 1574 he lost his life in suspicious circumstances when he fell from a scaffold. The museum possesses a self-portrait of Gambara, so that at the very least we have an idea of what he looked like. Also very good was a painting of Doubting Thomas, made by the Dutch or Flemish master Matthias Stom (ca. 1600-after 1652). Unfortunately very little is known about Stom, but he was certainly a talented painter. He spent a large part of his life in Italy and died there as well.
Il Pitocchetto and late works
Lastly, I want to dedicate a few sentences to Giacomo Ceruti (1698-1767). Although Ceruti was born in Milan and died there too, he moved to Brescia in his teens and worked in the city between 1721 and 1734. Unlike most of his contemporaries, Ceruti did not paint kings, popes or religious works, but the ordinary people that walked the streets of Northern Italy in the eighteenth century. With a great eye for detail he painted the way they lived, never shying away from depicting their poverty as well. Because of this, Ceruti was granted the nickname Il Pitocchetto – “little beggar” – in the twentieth century. Many interesting works of Ceruti can be admired in the museum, including the Laundress, the Cobblers and the Girls’ school.
The last room of the museum is dedicated to the nineteenth century. Here too we find big names, for instance a painting by Francesco Hayez (1791-1882) and sculptures by Antonio Canova (1757-1822) and Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844). It was Count Tosio himself who commissioned Canova to make a bust of Eleonora d’Este (1537-1581). The sculptor completed the work in 1819. From 1814-1815 dates the sculpture of Ganymedes and the eagle, made by the Dane Thorvaldsen and part of Tosio’s legacy. Ganymedes was the son of the Trojan king Tros. When the supreme god Zeus needed a new cup-bearer on Mount Olympus – his daughter Hebe having messed up the job – he changed himself into an eagle and kidnapped Ganymedes. From now on, it was the boy who served the gods their nectar. In return for his services, he was transformed into the astrological sign of Aquarius upon his death.
Further reading: Evert de Rooij, Lombardije Oost, p. 47-49.