Giovanni Bellini ( c. 1435 c. – 1516) was the son of Jacopo Bellini, a famous painter, the brother of Gentile, who was to become a famous painter in his turn, and the brother-in-law of Andrea Mantegna. He was known as “Messer Zuan Bellin” (or “Giambellino” “everyone’s master”). He made numerous masterpieces that can still grasp the spirit of the times and of the significance of the tremendous cultural upheavals then taking place, thanks to the moving poetry of his figures and landscapes, and thanks to his ever fresh powers of creativity. but he still perfectly embodied the glorious tradition of Venetian humanism from its first timid beginnings to the fullness of its splendor. He also embodies the time of religious, economic and scientific developments in Europe. The Scuderie del Quirinale exhibition will be hosting not only Bellini’s famous Madonnas, or his numerous sacred and profane pictures, all chosen genre by genre for their representative quality, but for the first time it will be hosting also such splendid altarpieces as the Baptism of Christ, commissioned for church of Santa Corona in Vicenza, and the extraordinary Pesaro Altarpiece, here reunited with its cymatium, or crowning upper piece, now owned by Vatican Museum.
