Painter Moroni’s death at Gorlago

See paintings by Moroni in the
Palazzo della Ragione

Giovan Battista Moroni, who was considered one of the great portrait painters of the 16th century,  died 433 years ago today while working on a painting of the Last Judgment at a church just outside Bergamo.

Moroni was born at Albino near Bergamo somewhere between 1510 and 1522 and went on to train under a religious painter from Brescia,  Alessandro Bonvicino.

Although Moroni painted some acclaimed religious works, he is even more renowned for the vitality and realism of his portraits,  for which he was once praised by Titian.

Some of Moroni’s work is in the Uffizzi Gallery in Florence and some in the National Gallery in London.

But some fine examples of Moroni’s work are also in the collection of the Accademia Carrarra in Bergamo.  Although the Accademia is currently closed for restoration, you can see some of Moroni’s paintings in the exhibition currently being held in the Palazzo della Ragione in the Piazza Vecchia in Bergamo’s Città Alta (upper town).

Moroni’s legacy of portraits provides an illuminating insight into life in Bergamo in the 16th century, as he received commissions from upwardly mobile merchants as well as nobleman.

Moroni was the first painter to reflect the changes brought about by the Reformation in his art, as a consequence of working in Trento towards the end of his life when the Council of Trent was summoned by Pope Paul III.

One of Moroni’s finest religious works, the Coronation of the Virgin, can be seen in the church of Sant Alessandro della Croce in Via Pignolo in Bergamo’s Città Bassa (lower town).

Moroni’s unfinished painting of the Last Judgment can be seen in the church at Gorlago, where he was working just before his death on 5 February 1578.

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