Paintings Gallery

From 10th to 19th October 2023 the “Quadreria” (Painting Collection / Gallery of Paintings) on the first floor will be closed to the public for exhibition setup.

The “Quadreria” (Painting Collection / Gallery of Paintings)

 of the Pinacoteca Civica in Como

On the noble floor of the Palazzo Volpi, the exhibition of Paintings is developed in 10 thematic rooms, which host large paintings of sacred subject from religious buildings from the Giuseppina and Napoleonic age, to paintings belonged to private collectiors and donated to the Civic Museum.

The Paintings Gallery offers a broad overview of the major artists active in Como from the counter-reformed age of the nineteenth century.

In the main hall there are two large lunettes from San Giovanni Pedemonte, the Gothic church of the Dominicans enriched in the Counter-Reformed and Baroque age by the chapels of the most wealthy Como families, demolished in 1810.
The "La Caduta degli angeli ribelli" by Pier Francesco Mazzucchelli named "Morazzone" and the "Il trionfo dell'arcangelo Michele" by Carlo Francesco Nuvolone were painted at different times (1608/09 one and a little over the mid-thirties the other one) for the chapel dedicated to San Michele, patronage of the noble family of the Gallios.



The room 1.2, dedicated to Morazzonian paintings, shows two paintings from the chapel of San Pietro Martire of San Giovanni Pedemonte, depicting two miracles performed by the Dominican saint, Il Miracolo dell'ostia cosacrata (The miracle of the consecrated host) (1629) by Cristoforo Caresana (c. -1629) and "San Pietro sana un giovane" (San Pietro heals a young) (1629) by Giovanni Paolo Ghianda (1597 ca.-Como, 1637).



In room 1.3, dedicated to painting in the second half of the 16th century, two works of the Milanese painter Giovan Pietro Gnocchi.


Room 1.4 hosts four large seventeenth-century paintings from suppressed religious buildings. The most important is "Madonna Assunta con i Santi Rocco, Caterina d’Alessandria e Agnese", juvenile work by Giulio Cesare Procaccini ( Bologna 1574 - Milan 1625).
Room 1.5 illustrates a model of noble patrons intended for private use. The three large paintings depicting Saint Helena in adoration of the true cross, the Birth of the Baptist and the evangelical episode of Sinite Parvulos with a sumptuous family portrait, come from the Olginati Palace, donated to the Municipality of Como with all the furnishings in 1931.


Room 1.6 is dedicated to the Baroque in the second half of the century between Milan and Como, the room brings together works that share the same time period, the Lombard identity of the authors and the Milanese-Como origins.
The next two rooms are dedicated to genre painting. The first (room 1.7) is dedicated to the history of the portrait, exemplified by different typologies in eras between the mid-sixteenth and early eighteenth centuries.
 From the visual telescope formed by the halls of the rooms, it is possible to see the splendid and impressive Portrait of Vespasiano Gonzaga Colonna, prince of Sabbioneta (1531-1591), at the age of twenty-eight (1559) in arms of a Hapsburg official parade to Bernardino Campi (1521 - 1591).
Room 1.8 documents the success of genre painting in seventeenth-century Italy, especially in the context of still life and battle. The paintings on display are evidence of the phenomenon of collecting in Como.
Also the canvases in Room 1.9, with the exception of the Guardian Angel by the Valtellina artist Pietro Ligari (1686 - 1752), document the richness and variety of the Como private collections of the modern age.

You can view some of the Art Pieces hosted at the Pinacoteca on the website of the Lombardy Heritage click here to view .