Giovanni Antonio Bazzi known as Il Sodoma A journy into the Renaissance

Fondazione Accorsi-Ometto is pleased to present a major exhibition dedicated to Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, known as "Il Sodoma," almost eighty years after his last major retrospective, held in 1950 in Vercelli and Siena.
Curated by Serena D'Italia, Luca Mana, and Vittorio Natale, with the advisory committee of Roberto Bartalini, Francesco Frangi, and Edoardo Villata, the exhibition presents the painter's early works for the first time. It showcases a frenzied elaboration of the artist's diverse experiences, which allowed him to develop a highly personal style.

From the workshop of Giovanni Martino Spanzotti to the fresco cycles in Sant'Anna in Camprena (1503-1504) and the cloister of Monteoliveto (1505-1508), near Siena, to his extraordinary visits to Rome, supported by the patronage of Agostino Chigi, Sodoma embarked on a journey that the exhibition attempts to reconstruct ideally.

The over fifty works on display, some of which unknown or never exhibited before, come from prestigious private collections and important public institutions, such as Accademia Carrara in Bergamo; Palazzo Papale in Castel Gandolfo; Museo Bagatti Valsecchi; Museo dei Cappuccini and Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan; Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris; Musei Civici in Pavia; Fondazione Guglielmo Giordano in Perugia; Arciconfraternita di Santa Maria dell'Orto, Galleria Borghese and Pinacoteca Capitolina in Rome; Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena; Chiesa del Cuore Immacolato di Maria in Valle Rossi di Sommariva Perno; Biblioteca Reale, Galleria Sabauda, Musei Reali, Palazzo Madama and Pinacoteca dell'Accademia Albertina in Turin; Palazzo dei Musei and Pinacoteca in Varallo; Archivio Storico Comunale and Museo Borgogna in Vercelli.

THE EXHIBITION PATH
The exhibition is divided into seven sections, representing the different stages of the journey undertaken by Sodoma during his early career.
The path opens with the 1510 Ecce Homo (The Mocking of Christ), a perfect example of Sodoma's best-known mature art, highlighting the artist's significant achievements throughout his formative years, to which the entire exhibition is dedicated. The first section also displays Giovanni Antonio Bazzi's original apprenticeship contract with Martino Spanzotti, in whose workshop the painter trained from 1490 onward, marking the beginning of Sodoma's artistic career.

The exhibition continues with works by artists from Vercelli and Casale known to Sodoma himself, such as Alvise De Donati, Eleazaro Oldoni, and Aimo and Balzarino Volpi (the first of whom was Spanzotti's brother-in-law). The path then goes on with the work by Giovanni Martino Spanzotti in the 1490s and by several artists who worked alongside the master in his workshop. Among these, in addition to Spanzotti's young pupil Defendente Ferrari, is Sodoma himself, represented by a recently discovered attribution, the Holy Family with Saint John the Baptist and an Angel from a private collection, now displayed in a public venue for the first time.

Bernardo Zenale, the so-called Master of the Sforza Altarpiece (Giovanni Angelo Mirofoli da Seregno?), and Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio cannot be missing among the artists of Leonardo's Milan. In this section, visitors can admire a painting on loan from Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris, a Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, the attribution of which, disputed between Zenale and Sodoma himself, can be verified in person. The Lombard cultural environment profoundly influenced Sodoma's early career, as demonstrated by the extraordinary Lamentation over the Dead Christ, recently granted on deposit by a private collector at Museo dei Cappuccini in Milan.... read the rest of the article»