MUSEO DI CASTELGRANDE

BELLINZONA, SWITZERLAND

1990-1991

The protagonist of the display is a decorative series of 144 tempera on paper drawings, selected from the 280 that used to adorn the wooden ceiling of a splendid 15^th-century city-centre house, since demolished. An anonymous Lombard artist developed the iconographic themes popular in secular 15^th-century art: Amor, the Virtues, Fame and chivalry. The result is an appealing and essential example of art for the history of the local culture, the expression of a mercantile class that was enjoying a prosperous period, in close contact with neighbouring Lombardy and with the countries beyond the Alps.