From the Medici to the Rothschilds. Patrons, Collectors, Philanthropists

Agnolo di Cosimo known as il Bronzino and workshop, Portrait of Lorenzo il Magnifico, ca. 1552-1553, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Galleria delle Statue e delle Pitture, Florence. Gabinetto fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, Firenze. Su concessione del Ministero della Cultura

From the Medici to the Rothschilds. Patrons, Collectors, Philanthropists investigates the role of patrons, collectors and philanthropists that many great bankers - or banking families - had starting from the Renaissance and throughout the modern age. Many of them were among the greatest patrons of all time; their collecting activity and, more generally, their commitment to support art and culture, were a strategic instrument of representation and social affirmation which still appears to be an eloquent example of the skilful transformation of economic capital into cultural and symbolic capital. Cosimo and Lorenzo de' Medici, the Giustiniani and Torlonia families, Enrico Mylius, Moritz von Fries, Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Wagener, Nathaniel Mayer Rothschild, John Pierpont Morgan: numerous works of art belonging to their collections recall their figures, their biographical events , often marked by important initiatives in favor of the community, patronage activity, collecting choices.

The exhibition presents important works, some very famous, by Verrocchio, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Gherardo delle Notti (Gerrit van Honthorst), Valentin de Boulogne, Antoon Van Dyck, Angelika Kauffmann, Francesco Hayez, as well as an unpublished work by Giorgio Morandi: masterpieces by different eras from prestigious national and international museums. The exhibition is produced in partnership with the Bargello Museums and the Alte Nationalgalerie Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, in collaboration with the Superintendence of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the Metropolitan City of Milan and with the patronage of the Municipality of Milan.