Durer and the Others. Renaissances on the banks of the Adige. The exhibition at the Buonconsiglio Castle in Trento. – Carlo Franza’s blog

In Trento, the encounter between Dürer and the Nordics with Venetian and Italian art creates the original laboratory of the Alpine Renaissance. A great exhibition, for the first time, documents a magical moment in the history of art.

It is no coincidence that Buonconsiglio Castle has chosen a great Nordic artist, Albrecht Dürer, as the protagonist of the exhibition that symbolizes the Centenary of the museum, founded in 1924. Dürer discovered Trento and Trentino in the years 1494-95, and was fascinated by the landscapes and atmospheres of these places, capturing their essence in a famous series of watercolours. The artist from Nuremberg was attracted by a Principality where art and the arts were cultivated with great passion and where the Renaissance was interpreted in a completely original way by artists from Trentino and by “foreigners” who came there because they were attracted by the prestige and the commissions of the court of the prince-bishops and the economic elite.
“Dürer and the Others. Renaissances on the banks of the Adige”, from July 6 to October 13, at Buonconsiglio, relives that journey and that magmatic, creative moment in the history of art of a land in the mountains. The exhibition, promoted by the museum of the Buonconsiglio Castle, in collaboration with the University of Trento and the Superintendence for Cultural Heritage, is curated by Bernard Aikema, Laura Dal Prà, Giovanni Maria Fara, Claudio Salsi.
In the exhibition, Dürer’s presence in Trentino is remembered by drawings, watercolors, including the magnificent view of Buonconsiglio Castle from the British Museum, engravings and paintings: the art of the great German did not go unnoticed but stimulated the artists active here to rethink their art. Starting from the spectacular “Dürer case”, the exhibition itinerary extends to investigate the origins of that original Renaissance, sui generis, which developed in Trentino between 1470 and 1530/40. A new style is taking shape, or rather, the set of many new languages, influenced by artists, works, fashions and ways that go back from Italy to Germany, to Flanders and vice versa.
Trentino and Southern Tyrol boasted some episcopal sees (Bressanone, Trento) and commercial ones (Bolzano) that constituted first-rate centers of attraction. A small autonomous enclave in the midst of the powers of the time, here a laboratory of innovative artistic solutions was activated, in an era – the decades around 1500 – of intense artistic and cultural transformation of the whole of Europe.
Not only Dürer. The exhibition investigates the presence of German artists in Trento, as exemplarily documented by the impressive Crucifixion by Sisto Frey in the city’s Cathedral.
After the extraordinary phase of Humanism, championed by Bishop Johannes Hinderbach, the exhibition reserves a particular focus on the figure of the great Prince-Bishop Bernardo Cles (1485-1539), promoter of the construction and decoration of the Magno Palazzo at Buonconsiglio Castle, advisor to Maximilian I and then member of the imperial diet of Charles V, as well as his grand chancellor. He employed not only Italian artists, but had his portraits painted by painters such as Bartholomäus Bruyn, or by medallists such as Hans Schwarz, and involved masters such as Dill Riemenschneider, alongside Romanino, Dosso and Fogolino.
Further study is dedicated to the role of Emperor Maximilian I, the sovereign for whom Dürer served. Maximilian was proclaimed King of the Romans on 4 February 1508 in Trento with a sumptuous ceremony and Bishop Neydeck wanted the

circumstance was remembered in the doors of the organ of Santa Maria Maggiore painted by Falconetto.
“Dürer and the Others. Renaissance on the banks of the Adige” brings together almost a hundred works on paper (prints, and not only those by Dürer, as a means of spreading artistic forms and ideas of primary importance, will play a fundamental role in the exhibition), paintings, sculptures and applied arts in various techniques. The exhibition will feature extraordinary paintings, sculptures, drawings and engravings by important artists such as Albrecht Dürer, Alvise Vivarini, Bartolomeo Dill Riemenschneider, Jorg Artzt, Max Reichlich, Michael Pacher, Girolamo Romanino and others, coming from major museum institutions such as the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, the Museo Correr, the Museum Ferdinandeum in Innsbruck, the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, the Strada Nuova Museums in Genoa and the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena.” Through their works it is possible to grasp, in various personal inflections, the new religious sensitivity, the interest in the individual, the reflection on the landscape – in the presence of the Alps -, the artistic permeability of a territory ‘hinge’ between the German world and the Italian world. The final section is reserved for the works spread throughout the Trentino territory, clear testimonies of the mixture of styles that in that fruitful period was revealed with happy results. To relive a magical moment in the history of art and of Trentino and European history.

Carlo Franza