The Hermitage An exhibition «Garofalo Pictures from the Monastery of San Bernardino in Ferrara», in which four of the Renaissance artist, nicknamed ferrarskim Rafael. Perhaps it is the most modest of the Hermitage exhibitions for many years. The three works - «The marriage at Cana in Galilee», «Allegory of Old and New Testament» and «Carrying the Cross» - from the Hermitage collection. In March 2003, they have exhibited in the Hermitage at the exhibition «Garofalo - ferrarsky Rafael», a much more representative: seven works Garofalo, eleven artists «content». Another picture, «The miracle of the bread and fishes», brought from Khabarovsk, Far Eastern Art Museum, but there she was transferred in 1931 from the Hermitage, too.

Explain a close interest in the Hermitage Tizi Benvenuto da Garofalo (1476-1559), called by contemporaries ferrarskim Rafael, his exceptional talent, is impossible. Complementary assessment was revised history of art. Garofalo - one of many artists of the second row actually imitating Raphael, but nothing more. Case in another. In October 2007, in Ferrara opened research center «The Hermitage - Italy». A Garofalo for Ferrara - «we are». Only there, at the Castle d'Este was a powerful exhibition, which was attended and the Louvre, and the London National Gallery, and the Dresden gallery of old masters, and the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and the museums of the Vatican, and itself, Hermitage Museum: More than a hundred works, and Garofalo his contemporaries. So the exhibit opened today at the Hermitage, explains only a desire to show the once disjointed group of four paintings.

history of their creation more interesting than themselves. In 1531 Garofalo blinded in one eye and made a vow to create a free series of paintings for the women's convent of San Bernardino, founded in 1510 the wife of Duke Alfonso I d'Este, Ferrara is being turned into «a bulwark of Christianity»: it sounds particularly touching, considering that the Duchess was none other, as the notorious Lucretia Borgia. The inscription on one of the paintings certifies that Garofalo really worked for free, which, however, it did not help: for nine years before his death, he finally lost his vision.

Sam monastery finished its existence in 1798 when the Apennine peninsula entered the Napoleonic army. But even in the six years prior to the impoverished nuns sold paintings Garofalo Pope Pius VI. This was to a monastery, apparently, the more regrettable that in the XVI century, it has been active in charity work. Indeed, it is on it, and hinted at Garofalo «miracle of the bread and fishes», painting, jewelry for the monastery's refectory: accurate in a crowd of hungry, satisfied the five bread and two fish, one can find prioress and nuns.

In 1840 the nephew of Pius Count Pio Braski, in turn, sold the family collection. Buy work Garofalo wished personally Nikolai I. In Russia, Garofalo appreciated since then, as in the 1720 Peter Beklemishev presented his «The Entombment» Peter, I work as a «glorious and drevnyago аутро named Rafael D` Urbino ».

on the canvas Garofalo is all that is associated with the Renaissance. The symmetry of the architectural space in which piruyut guests at a wedding, and made to last ferrarskoy fashion dresses bride and groom. The theatrical gesture of Jesus, turning away in the direction of Veronica, intending to wipe the sweat and blood on his face. Blue Mountains, green oak and curly clouds that serve the hungry back to the Jews. Some stiffness may inherit the Gothic tradition, evident only in the «Allegory»: victorious woman papal tiara, symbolizing the Christian church, intercepts arm blood effuse from the wounds of Christ, to divide it into three streams, the appropriate sacraments of baptism, confession and Communion. A defeated Synagogue depicted opposing old woman, sat on a donkey. It is not the archbishop Dzhirolamo Barufaldi enlightened in the XVIII century thoughtfully wrote about the painting: «Just a strange story makes rather think of Dante Alighieri, than about the artist». Probably, it can be understood as a compliment: the legacy of Garofalo interesting of all the work, which he did not conform to the canonical image of Raphael's district scale.

The exhibition will run until September 28.

Source: kommersant.ru , hermitagemuseum.org