Enea Salmeggia – painter

Bergamo artist left treasure trove of pictures to remember him by

Enea Salmeggia's Il Martirio di Sant'Alessandro
hangs behind the altar of Sant'Alessandro in Colonna

Enea Salmeggia, who was active during the late Renaissance period and left behind a rich legacy of paintings in Lombardy, died on 25 February 1626 in Bergamo.

Salmeggia, also known as Il Talpino, or Salmezza, spent time in Rome as a young man, where he studied the works of Raphael. His style has often been likened to that of Raphael and he has even been dubbed the ‘Bergamo Raphael’ by some art enthusiasts. A drawing in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, of two figures seated along with some architectural studies, was previously attributed to Raphael, but has now been ascribed to Enea Salmeggia.

The artist was born at Salmezza, a frazione of Nembro, a comune in the province of Bergamo, between 1565 and 1570. It is known that Salmeggia grew up in Borgo San Leonardo in Bergamo, where his father, Antonio, was a tailor.

He learnt the art of painting from other Bergamo painters and is also believed to have studied under the Bergamo artist Simone Peterzano in Milan. Caravaggio was one of Peterzano’s most famous pupils and it has been suggested that Salmeggia could have been studying with Peterzano at about the same time as Caravaggio.

Salmeggia's Portrait of a Gentleman
can be seen at Accademia Carrara

Salmeggia was so young when he received his first commission to paint an Adoration of the Magi for the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo that his father had to sign the acceptance document on his behalf.

The artist married Vittoria Daverio, the sister of Milanese sculptor Pietro Antonio Daverio, and they had six children. Two of their children died from the plague and one went into a monastery, but his daughters, Chiara and Elisabetta, and his son, Francesco, helped in his workshop near the Church of Sant’Alessandro in Colonna in Via Sant’Alessandro, and they later became painters themselves.

One of Salmeggia’s most famous works, Il Martirio di Sant’Alessandro, an oil on canvas, completed in 1623, can still be seen behind the altar in the Church of Sant’Alessandro in Colonna.

The Church has a Roman column in front of it, which is believed to mark the exact spot where Bergamo’s patron saint, Sant’Alessandro was martyred by the Romans in 303 for refusing to renounce his Christian faith. Every year, on 26 August, the Festa di Sant’Alessandro, Bergamo people commemorates Sant’Alessandro’s decapitation there.

After Salmeggia died in Bergamo in 1626 he was buried in the Church of Sant’Alessandro in Colonna.

There are paintings by Salmeggia in the churches of Sant’Andrea and Santi Bartolomeo e Stefano in Bergamo and the Accademia Carrara, a prestigious art gallery in Bergamo, also has works by Salmeggia, including his Portrait of a Gentleman. Further afield, there are paintings by Salmeggia in Brescia, Lodi and Milan.

In Nembro, the suburb where Salmeggia was born, the Church of San Martino has no fewer than 27 of his paintings for visitors to admire.

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Bergamo Capital of Culture 2023

Chance for city to showcase rich artistic and musical heritage

As Bergamo cautiously reopens after the devastation caused by the Covid-19 epidemic, the city has received a welcome boost from the Italian government.

The Chamber of Deputies has approved the candidature of Bergamo, jointly with Brescia, as Italian Capitals of Culture 2023.

Bergamo's Teatro Donizetti

This is being seen as a symbol of recovery by the two cities, who both suffered badly during the worst of the pandemic earlier this year.

Once the selection of Bergamo and Brescia is given the formal go-ahead by the Italian senate, the cities can begin drawing up plans to present to Italy’s ministry of culture.

What better setting could be found for a year of cultural events than the beautiful city of Bergamo with its rich history of artistic and musical achievement? 

The city’s Accademia Carrara houses one of the richest private collections of art in Italy.

The Teatro Donizetti, named in honour of opera composer Gaetano Donizetti who was born in Bergamo, presents an enormous variety of operas, concerts, jazz and other cultural events each year.

The imposing walls, le Mura, built by the Venetians to enclose Bergamo’s upper town have been declared a Unesco World Heritage site.

The Venetian walls surrounding the upper town.

Piazza Vecchia, with its wealth of medieval architecture has been described as the most beautiful square in Italy. 

And Cappella Colleoni in Piazza Duomo is said to be the finest Renaissance building in northern Italy, if not in the whole of Italy.

Bergamo’s capital of culture partner, Brescia, to the south east, is also a city of great artistic and architectural importance. Although it is the second city in Lombardia, after Milan, and has Roman remains and well-preserved Renaissance buildings, it is perhaps not as well-known to tourists as Bergamo.

Brescia became a Roman colony before the birth of Christ and you can still see remains from the forum, theatre and a temple.

The beautiful Piazza Vecchia in Bergamo

The town came under the protection of Venice in the 15th century and there is a distinct Venetian influence in the architecture of the Piazza della Loggia, an elegant square in the centre of the town. 

The Santa Giulia Museo della Citta covers more than 3000 years of Brescia’s history, housed within the Benedictine Nunnery of San Salvatore and Santa Giulia in Via Musei. The nunnery was built over a Roman residential quarter, but some of the houses, with their original mosaics and frescos, have now been excavated and can be seen while looking round the museum.

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Accademia Carrara reopens in Bergamo

Caravaggio masterpiece will remain on display

The Accademia Carrara reopened its doors to visitors
from today, 22 May, following the lockdown.

A welcome sign that things are getting back to normal in Bergamo is the reopening of the Accademia Carrara.

The prestigious art gallery, which lies just outside the Città Alta, finally opened its doors to visitors again today, following the Covid-19 outbreak.

You can book your access to the museum on line at prenotazioni@lacararra.it or by ringing +39 328 1721727.

A pleasant surprise for art enthusiasts will be that Caravaggio’s famous painting of The Musicians, which was on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York before the Carrara had to close, will remain at the gallery until the end of the summer.

The Metropolitan Museum’s offer to extend the loan of the painting to Bergamo has been described by the Carrara as an ‘extraordinary act of generosity’ and a demonstration of the solidarity that unites Bergamo and New York, ‘two cities that are being sorely tested by the current health crisis.

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Baroque artist Caravaggio painted the three young men playing musical instruments, with a fourth dressed as Cupid, while he was still a young man. He was living in the household of his patron, Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte. One member of the group is thought to be a self portrait of the artist.

Caravaggio, whose real name was Michelangelo Merisi, spent the early years of his life living in the small town of Caravaggio just south of Bergamo. It is believed his family moved there because of an outbreak of plague in Milan after his birth in 1571.

Caravaggio's painting, The Musicians, painted in about
1595, is on loan at the Carrara from The Met in New York

He later returned to Milan to train as a painter and then went on to work in Rome, Naples, Malta and Sicily until his death at Porto Ercole in Tuscany in 1610.

The town of Caravaggio is well worth visiting to see the Sanctuary of the Madonna di Caravaggio, which was built in the 16th century on the spot where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to a local peasant woman. The Sanctuary was rebuilt in the 18th century and is now a grand building visited by pilgrims from all over the world.

Bergamo airport at Orio al Serio changed its name to the Caravaggio International Airport Bergamo - Orio al Serio in 2011.

The Accademia Carrara is one of the biggest jewels in Bergamo’s crown. The art gallery is housed in a magnificent palace, built in the 18th century to house one of the richest private collections of art in Italy.

It is the only Italian museum to be entirely stocked with donations and bequests from private collectors. Visitors can view a broad-ranging collection of works by the masters of the Venetian, Lombard and Tuscan renaissances as well as great artists who came later.

The Carrara was established in 1794 as a combined Pinacoteca and School of Painting on the initiative of Bergamo aristocrat Count Giacomo Carrara. In addition to his collection of paintings he left his entire estate to the Accademia to secure its future.

The number and quality of the works in the Accademia has increased over the years thanks to donations and bequests from private collectors.

Accademia Carrara is in Piazza Giacomo Carrara, a short walk from Porta Sant’Agostino. For more information about the new opening hours visit www.lacarrara.it.

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