Carrara Academy of Bergamo

The Carrara Academy is the only Italian museum of legacies of important private collectors. It was established in Bergamo in 1794 as the unique complex of Pinacoteca and Scuola di Pittura, on the initiative of the patrician bergamasco Giacomo Carrara (1714 - 1796), who started building the building to host its rich collection of paintings. Count Carrara was also concerned about the future support of the Academy, destined for her will, by her will. At his death the management of the Carrara Academy passed to the Commissaría, composed of members of the aristocratic bergamasque families. Over time, the Academy's heritage has grown remarkably, by number and quality of the works. On the Carrara collection, in fact, the donations of Count Guglielmo Lochis (1789-1859), administrator, politician and collector, the conoisseur and senator of the Kingdom of Italy Giovanni Morelli (1816-1891), one of the founding fathers of A modern history of art, and finally the collection of sculptures by Federico Zeri (1921-1998), top expert in Italian art. Along with the most important donations, over the years has come a very constellation of over two hundred precious legacies, which have gradually enriched Carrara's heritage, which now stands at 1,800 paintings, extending its chronological period and vocations. From a museum dedicated to Renaissance painting - with the great masterpieces of Pisanello, Mantegna, Bellini, Botticelli, Raffaello, Lotto, Moroni - the history of the Carrara Academy has made it a tout-court art museum with a A wide representation of sixteen, seventeenth and eighteenth-century pictorial genres, a significant collection of drawings and prints and precious cores of decorative arts, from fancy to porcelain, bronze to medals.