The exhibition The Renaissance in Brescia. Moretto, Romanino, Savoldo 1512-1552, is the main exhibition event in the cultural program of the Brescia Museums Foundation for autumn 2024.

In the galleries, the paintings of the great masters of Brescia painting – coming to Brescia from six American museums and important Italian and European collections, interact with rare and precious objects such as ancient musical instruments, armor, tapestries, and maiolica plates, offering a suggestive image of the thoughts, feelings, objects, and characters that animated the life of the city.

While the work of Alessandro Bonvicino il Moretto, Girolamo Romanino, and Giovanni Gerolamo Savoldo has been extensively studied over a century, there has been a lack until now of a comprehensive narrative of the 16th century in Brescia with its richness, complexity, and, in some ways, contradictions.
The perspective will therefore focus on emblematic figures, such as Fortunato Martinengo, the nobleman from Brescia portrayed by Moretto in the painting preserved at the National Gallery in London, or like the spouses Gerolamo Martinengo and Eleonora Gonzaga for whom sumptuous celebrations were organized, or even female protagonists of a "revolution" like Angela Merici. Poetry, nature, music, love, faith, desire, and research are at the center of this unprecedented narrative through works, which begins with the evocation of the Sack of 1512, which brought Brescia to the attention of the entire Europe.