Lorenzo Lotto in Carrara
Room 10 – work and portrait of a woman (1521 – 1523)
Bergamo (Bg), Giacomo Carrara Square 82, 24124 – Bergamo
In this room I suggest you to focus on the portrait of “Lucina Brembati”, a prominent female figure in early sixteenth century Bergamo painted by Lorenzo Lotto between 1521 to 1523. The precious jewels exalt the woman’s self-confidence, portrayed realistically, as demonstrated by the asymmetrical face, the heavy chin and the sharp look. The noblewoman wears a headdress called The Capigliara, made of fabric, pearls and false hair. It was very fashionable at the time because Isabella d’Este, one of the most influential women of the Renaissance always wore it. To discover the noblewoman’s name in the painting it is necessary to solve a puzzle. Look carefully at the little moon that lights up the night sky: the letters C and I are written on it. If you insert these letters in the middle of the word moon you will get LuCia!
Another work of art in the room is: The “Mystical wedding of Saint Catherine”. The painter painted it in 1523 for the Bergamo merchant Niccolò Bonghi who is the man dressed in sixteenth century clothes on the left side of the painting. The canvas amazes with the brightness of the colors of the central group crossed by a vein restlessness. The scene portrays the symbolic wedding between Jesus, who offers a ring, and the Saint Catherine of Alessandria in Egypt who was martyred because she did not want to get married, declaring that she was already married to Christ.
In the place of gray part of the “Mystical wedding of Saint Catherine” painting, there was once an open window onto a landscape on the Mount Sinai. It seems, but it is not certain, that during a French siege the canvas, hidden in the church of San Michele, it was found by a soldier who cut that part away.
Images courtesy of the Accademia Carrara Foundation, Bergamo.
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