Pinacoteca Repossi

The Foundation was created in 1966 in memory of Stefano Antonio Morcelli (1737-1821) and the lawyer Pietro Bartolomeo Repossi (1776-1854), the respective founders of the library and the picture gallery located in the historical centre of Chiari in ancient buildings donated by Monsignor Pietro Faglia in 1776. As such, it constitutes a synthesis of the town's cultural history. The Biblioteca Morcelliana, which opened to the public in 1822, was built up around its founder's bequest (1817) in favour of the "studious young people of Chiari" and has since been expanded through private and public donations. It now boasts some 70,000 printed works, including 56 incunabula, thousands of 16th-century works and rare editions of the 17th and 18th centuries as well as manuscripts, parchments and private and public archives of the 13th-20th centuries. It was in 1854 that Repossi left his rich collection of art to the library, thus providing the original nucleus of the present-day museum. Once again expanded through private and public donations, the Pinacoteca Repossi is today a prestigious repository of artistic and cultural heritage with works thematically exhibited. The paintings section comprises over 100 works of different genres and sizes covering the period from the 15th century to the 21st. The prints section has 2,300 items exemplifying the work of the various major schools and individual masters of Italian and European graphic art as from the 15th century, including a very rare print of Antonio Pollaiolo's Nude Figures in Combat, Andrea Mantegna's Bacchanal, the Deposition from Dürer's Small Passion, some works by Lucas van Leyden, Venus and Adonis by Giorgio Ghisi, The Flight into Egypt by Cantarini, some items from Tiepolo's Capricci series and works by Rembrandt. There are numerous engravings of the French, Flemish, English and Italian schools from the17th, 18th and 19th centuries as well as work by 20th-century and contemporary artists like Max Klinger, Giuseppe Guerreschi, Floriano Bodini, Tono Zancanaro, Fausto Melotti, Federica Galli and Carlo Pescatori. The sculpture section presents works from the last two centuries and there is a special section of works in plaster by local artists.