The exhibition dedicated to one of the most original and fascinating scholars in the history of Italian art, Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle, was inaugurated at Palazzo Altemps, home of the National Roman Museum. Presented in a partial preview in November and December 2023 at the National Marciana Library in Venice, with over 16,000 visitors, the Roman exhibition now gathers an impressive series of paintings: twenty-four. In them, the author, Corrado Veneziano, commits to merging his most authentically contemporary research with the revolutionary "investigations" of Cavalcaselle: all focused on Italian medieval and Renaissance art. The exhibition "Painting Cavalcaselle," curated by Francesca Barbi Marinetti, will be open to the public from Wednesday, June 19 to Sunday, July 28, 2024.

Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle (1819-1897) is actually a subject of great intellectual plurality, starting from his professional and civil biography. After fighting for independence during the Risorgimento period and experiencing exile (he was sentenced to death by the Austrian Government in Lombardo Veneto), Cavalcaselle became the director of the first Ministry of Culture post-unification. Here, continuing his artistic vocation, he refined a declaredly "investigative" component by conducting a systematic study of Italian and European artworks, in order to definitively determine their authorship.

To determine whether the analyzed painting was Italian (and not Belgian, French, Dutch, as was sometimes believed), or if it was by Giovanni Bellini (and not Giorgione), Piero della Francesca (and not Van Eyck), Cavalcaselle traveled extensively across the Peninsula and a large part of Europe. He tirelessly journeyed from Sicily to Friuli, from Rome to Madrid, Paris, Brussels, London, and St. Petersburg.