As part of the celebrations for the 500th anniversary of the birth of Giovanni Battista Moroni, FAI announces the temporary and extraordinary opening of four rooms on the piano nobile of Palazzo Moroni.

These seventeenth-century rooms, richly frescoed by Gian Giacomo Barbelli at the behest of Francesco Moroni (1606-1674), have been preserved intact and house the furnishings and the important picture gallery, created in the seventeenth century and further enriched in the nineteenth, consisting of a nucleus of sixteenth-century Lombard paintings, including three masterpieces by Giovanni Battista Moroni, and numerous notable examples of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century painting.

The Moroni family, who built the Palazzo, were also originally from Albino like the painter, and in the seventeenth century enjoyed considerable wealth thanks to the cultivation of mulberry trees (murù in the local dialect, hence the heraldic coat of arms), which were essential to the flourishing textile industry in the area.

From Friday 17 September, the FAI will, for the first time, offer the public a visit to the Palazzo, together with the Gardens, which are open from summer 2020. In addition to the historic park with its Italian-style terraces and the extraordinary vegetable garden, which extends for two hectares at the foot of the Rocca Civica, four of the nine splendid rooms on the piano nobile, which together with the Scalone d’onore (Staircase of Honour) form part of the palace, will finally be accessible: the Sala dell’età dell’oro (Hall of the Golden Age), the Sala dei Giganti (Hall of Giants), the Sala di Ercole (Hall of Hercules) and the Salone della Gerusalemme liberata (Hall of Jerusalem Delivered). In the Golden Age Room, in particular, visitors can admire three splendid works by Moroni – to whom the family is not related, but who was acquired in the 19th century to reinforce the evidence of a family glory based on the homonymy with the famous painter – such as the Portrait of Gian Gerolamo Grumelli, known as The Knight in Pink, that of his wife Isotta Brembati, and finally the Portrait of an Elderly Woman in Black.

In June last year, immediately after the first lockdown, the Foundation opened the Gardens, having carried out numerous cleaning and restoration works on the green area in record time – the acquisition of the Palazzo was in December 2019 – and announced that it would make the stupendous internal rooms accessible as soon as possible. In the difficult months that followed the “second wave” of the pandemic, study and research projects were launched and the work to bring the building up to standard was completed at a fast pace, the spaces were equipped with new electrical systems and new safety devices, essential for opening to the public, and the paintings in the rich collection of paintings were catalogued and subjected to the first conservation work.

The wide-ranging research campaign launched by FAI aimed to achieve the complete cataloguing and study of the picture gallery, in order to restore the history of the collection and to understand the criteria that guided its creation. Other areas of analysis included the iconographic study of Gian Giacomo Barbelli’s 17th-century frescoes, with the necessary in-depth study of the family archives, which are still intact and under the protection of the Fondazione Museo di Palazzo Moroni. Research has also begun into the history of all the protagonists in the life of the Palazzo and their role in the events of the Upper City, between historical events and the political and urban development of the city. These studies, which are still underway, will be refined and further developed over the coming years. For this project, FAI has established a fruitful dialogue with the city’s main institutions, in order to include its own proposal in Bergamo’s cultural offer and to collaborate in the common objective of enhancing the value of the city.

The reopening of the piano nobile of Palazzo Moroni,” said Lombardy Regional Councillor for Culture and Autonomy Stefano Bruno Galli, “greatly enriches the cultural offer of Bergamo and Lombardy. It is a historical and artistic treasure of considerable importance, also in view of 2023, the year in which Bergamo and Brescia will be Capitals of Culture. This is the result of a virtuous and far-sighted agreement – aimed at enhancing the architectural and artistic heritage of the historic baroque Palazzo Moroni belonging to the Moroni family – between the Fondazione Museo di Palazzo Moroni and the Fondo Ambiente Italiano. It is a wonderful opportunity to return to the enjoyment of live culture and to rediscover one of the greatest painters of the Italian Renaissance: Giovan Battista Moroni from Alba, whose 500th anniversary falls on the occasion of his birth”.

“We are honoured – said SIAD Chairman Roberto Sestini – to have collaborated with FAI on the restoration and safety work on Palazzo Moroni, one of the most important historical buildings in Bergamo and in Italy. With this valuable initiative, the SIAD Group, despite its size and international vocation, continues to strengthen its ties with the Bergamo area”.