The management of the Achille Bertarelli Civic Print Collection is presenting the exhibition “Representations of Destiny”, organised by G.Mori and C. Salsi, from 9 May to 29 July in the Treasure Hall of the Trivulziana Library in the Sforza Castle.
Images of life and death from the 15th to 19th centuries are shown in prints from the Bertarelli Collection, that is 130 engravings that form part of the rich heritage of prints conserved in the Collection. The exhibition route proceeds through eleven themed sections: Vanitas, Dance of Death, Death’s ambushes, the Lesson of Death, Meditation, Triumphs, Portraits, the Choice, Scoffing Death, the Ladder of Life, Ars Moriendi.
These remnants conserved at the Bertarelli - portraits, popular and profane prints, artistic prints, book illustrations - lead back to an iconography linked to the progress of human life, in some cases taken from models such as the Dance of Death or Ars Moriendi, or by means of allegorical motifs that are less widespread and therefore arouse more interest and curiosity. Images that demonstrate concern for final destiny, the paucity and temporary nature of terrestrial goods, the religious and social rules that prepare for the final prize, images that come from popular ambits but also from cultivated traditions, fruits of the most disparate places, epochs and social environments. Images in which life and death are experience by the whole of mankind, with death arriving at any moment, in the street, in bed, at the meal table. Giovan Battista Tiepolo prepared an etching “Death gives an audience” in 1740-42.
Sheets of graphic art and popular prints in which each image is loaded with meaning, Italian, French, German and Flemish sheets. From the cultured tradition one must cite G.B. Tiepolo, G.B. Castiglione, and S. della Bella. In the popular tradition, G. M. Mitelli and the Remondini Press. An item with a strong impact is the “Machina del Mondo” by Giuseppe Maria Mitelli, a water-coloured etching from 1687, a real tower of Babel that includes everyone from king to ragamuffin, while death with its scythe draws near to mow down lives.
Allegorical floats that describe the Triumphs of Wealth, of the World and of Time, through a meticulous and refined illustration such as the Flemings knew how to obtain. Dances of Death and Ladders of Life that illustrate the different ages of man are reproduced over time with an unchanged iconography. It is interesting to see in these sheets how, at different times and in different places, people have adopted different attitudes to life and death. Representations of “destiny” scanned over time with the names of fate, destiny, design.
There are lessons of life and death that have remained in the memory of the majority, from saints to potentates, from the humble to prophets. These print images follow the life of man up to the point of death, when scoffing death adduces to the Ars Moriendi.
An exhibition in the Treasure Hall in Milan that offers the public a unique heritage of mankind. (traduzione Interpres sas-Giussano)