The Age of the Baroque. Bernini, Gentileschi, Rubens

At the Monumental Complex of St Francis a Cuneo, CRC Foundation e Intesa Sanpaolo are presenting the exhibition The Age of the Baroque. Bernini, Gentileschi, Rubens, a new event dedicated to the major figures in the history of art. Organised with the support of MondoMostre and edited by Maurizia Cicconi e Alessandro Cosma, the exhibition brings together a carefully curated selection of 25 works from the National Galleries of Ancient Art, Rome - Barberini Palace e Corsini Gallery –, institutions that house some of the most significant public collections of Italian and European art.

The exhibition traces the extraordinary artistic and cultural climate that made Rome the driving force behind the Baroque and transformed the city into a veritable international crossroads of artists, ideas and languages. At the heart of the narrative lies the figure of Maffeo Barberini, who ascended to the papal throne under the name of Pope Urban VIII, a renowned patron and commissioner who made culture and the arts a key instrument of his political strategy, relying on the greatest masters of the time.

It was in this creative atmosphere that symbolic masterpieces such as the monumental bronze canopy of St Peter's made by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and the spectacular decorations by Pietro da Cortona for Barberini Palace. Through the works of true masters such as Bernini, Gentileschi, Rubens, Guercino, Guido Reni, Annibale Carracci e Domenichino, the exhibition captures the full vitality of the Roman Baroque, revealing its key figures, its central ideas and the workings of an ambitious cultural project.