On the occasion of the Milano Art Week and miart 2026, at the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Cantarella, the site-specific project by artist Nuria Mora (Madrid, 1974) is inaugurated for the Roman Forum Hall. Curated by Gianluca Ranzi and Elisabetta Mero, with general coordination by Martina Corbetta and scientific support from Marta Moriarty, the exhibition takes the form of a large immersive installation capable of transforming the historical space into a suspended environment where painting, architecture, and memory interact organically.

Inserted in the heart of an institution that preserves centuries of art and history, the intervention does not impose itself as a rupture, but as a subtle and respectful presence within the context. The project unfolds as a meditation on the greatness of the feminine, often confined by historical narrative to the mere aesthetic dimension, and explores its symbolic and spiritual depth through a contemporary language.

The title Cantarella refers to the legendary Renaissance poison associated with the Borgia family, traditionally identified with white arsenic, an odorless and tasteless substance capable of acting slowly. The legend told that the victim, before dying, appeared calm, almost as if "singing." This symbolic element becomes in the project a metaphor for the boundary between appearance and truth, between beauty and danger, between historical account and mythical construction.

The figure evoked in the journey is Lucrezia Borgia, of whom the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana preserves some letters addressed to the humanist friend Pietro Bembo and, in a precious case made by Alfredo Ravasco at the beginning of the 20th century, a lock of hair. The image of this legendary woman has been marked over the centuries by suspicions and propaganda linked to the so-called black legend of the Borgias, particularly of the father Rodrigo Borgia, who became Pope Alexander VI. A cultured and diplomatic woman, capable of exerting a significant political role, Lucrezia has often been reduced to an ambiguous icon of seduction and poison. The project does not intend to rewrite history, but to open a space for reflection on the construction of the gaze and the judgment that has accompanied the representation of female power.

Cantarella constructs a new contemporary fable, inspired by a popular legend according to which Lucrezia, enveloped in a golden light, enters the rooms of the Ambrosiana some nights to comb her hair and read the letters to Pietro Bembo.

Nuria Mora proposes a poetic narrative suspended between myth, memory, and matter, where the real and the imagined coexist.