At the Civica Pinacoteca “Il Guercino” in Cento, from 2 October 2026 to 10 January 2027, the exhibition Marcello Provenzale da Cento. A Genius of Baroque Mosaic in the Rome of the Borghese Family will be on view.
Marcello Provenzale permanently transformed the language of mosaic art. Trained as a painter, he found his ideal field of expression on the building sites of St. Peter’s Basilica, the heart of the revival of mosaic art between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He decorated Michelangelo’s dome and the Clementine Chapel, created the Borghese coat of arms in the nave for Pope Paul V, and restored Giotto’s celebrated Navicella.
His extraordinary skill earned him the patronage of Rome’s most prestigious families, foremost among them the Borghese.
The pinnacle of his achievement, however, lies in his remarkable easel mosaics. Beginning around 1600, Provenzale developed the so-called “filato mosaic” technique: enamels fused into extremely thin glass rods, cut into millimetre-sized pieces and assembled to create subtle gradations of colour and unprecedented detail. The result was a new type of artwork capable of competing with painting and surpassing it in one essential aspect: the incorruptibility of its material, transforming sacred images into enduring objects of contemplation.
Among the works featured in the exhibition is a painting from the UniCredit Art Collection: Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane (c. 1613-1614) by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, known as Guercino.
The exhibition, conceived by Cristina Grimaldi Fava, is curated by Paolo Di Buono, Director of the Vatican Mosaic Studio at the Fabbrica di San Pietro, and Giovanni Sassu, Director of the Civica Pinacoteca “Il Guercino”.
For further information: https://www.civicapinacotecailguercino.it/eventi/mostre/provenzale/
