In the renovated spaces of the museum, the first exhibition ever dedicated in Italy and in the world to Cecco del Caravaggio (Francesco Boneri, circa 1585 - post 1620) probably born in the Bergamo area, pupil and model of Merisi in at least six paintings.

41 works 19 of the approximately 25 known paintings by Cecco, 2 works by Caravaggio and, together, artists who inspired and were inspired by this fascinating painter.

National and international loans from Berlin, London, Madrid, Oxford, Warsaw, Vienna, Brescia, Florence, Milan, Rome . After the 2020 project dedicated to Simone Peterzano, the Carrara Academy confirms its commitment and attention to authors with important territorial and cultural links to the Bergamo collection, documented by works of great quality but not yet valued.

In the year of Bergamo Brescia Italian Capital of Culture Accademia Carrara reopens to the public on 28 January 2023 following an important museum renovation project, with the first exhibition ever dedicated to Cecco del Caravaggio, Merisi's pupil and model. Atypical, intolerant of rules, destined to arouse contrasts and perhaps enmity, although almost absent from historical and judicial chronicles (unlike most of his colleagues in Caravaggio's circle), the enigmatic figure of Cecco del Caravaggio appears as a capable nonconformist of clamorous novelties in the iconographic installations virtuoso of an extraordinary painting relentless in the definition of the shapes of the contours in the color naturalist extremist audacious hyperrealist ante literram overbearing and without censoring fears at times explicit in the erotic references and in the homosexual messages.

The Cecco del Caravaggio case is relatively recent, the new studies launched by Gianni Papi starting from the 90s as well as the goals achieved, including the discovery of some works, demonstrate how much the history of art is a living and lively matter capable, if pursued , to continually renew itself also against that sort of damnatio memoriae which soon affected Boneri's artistic vicissitudes a sort of systematic neglect which today could fall within the broad spectrum of Cancel Culture.

The itinerary highlights both authors, such as Merisi and Savoldo from whom Cecco drew inspiration, and a series of artists who were close to him (including Valentin de Boulogne, Bartolomeo Mendozzi and Pedro Núñez del Valle through loans from collections, especially public galleries of the Uffizi Pitti Palace in Florence Prado Museum in Madrid Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna National Gallery in Athens National Gallery of Ancient Art in Palazzo Barberini in Rome Gemäldegalerie in Berlin Galleria Borghese and Pinacoteca Capitolina in Rome Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo in Brescia Wellington Museum in London Ashmolean Museum of Oxford to name a few.

The Bergamo exhibition offers, for the first time, a transversal and almost complete look at Cecco's work, bringing together masterpieces that have proved to be fundamental in the reconstruction of the author's corpus. In particular, Expulsion of the merchants from the temple 1613 1615 circa), from the Gemäldegalerie of Berlin had an essential role in determining the very first nucleus of works by Roberto Longhi and therefore in defining the identity of the pictorial language.