"Girolamo and Rosaria Devanna" National Gallery of Puglia

A monumental building as the site for the new museum

The official site of the Gallery is Palazzo Sylos Calò. Built in the 16th century, the building blends elements of late medieval architecture with a Renaissance lexicon (found in the classically-influenced architecture), the result of civil construction at the time. Its loggia forms the extraordinary scenic backdrop to Piazza Cavour, becoming in the 19th century the point of union between the old town and the new suburb. In 1902, it was included in the List of Monumental Buildings of Italy by the then Ministry of Education.

An eccentric cultural offering

With the strength of its national identity, the Gallery's collection does not disdain works by foreign artists, offering the public a comprehensive and stimulating view of artistic production between the 16th and 20th centuries. Spread over five rooms and consisting of 350 works, the collection serves as a starting point for research and study of the works on display, as well as for an in-depth study of art history. The itinerary is intended to reflect the spirit of a private collection that is at the heart of the exhibition, bringing out the common denominator that led the original collectors to buy, sell and select the works, and creating new points of discussion to entice the public to return to the rooms.

Sixteenth-century forms and colours

Symbols of the 16th century include the works of Giovan Filippo Criscuolo (Death and Assumption of the Madonna), as well as the splendid painting attributed to the circle of Titian Vecellio (Portrait of a Gentleman) representing Venetian painting. There is an interesting group of paintings of late Byzantine culture attributable to the Cretan area.

The Golden Ages of Baroque Painting: 17th and 18th Centuries

Representing this flourishing artistic period are Artemisia Gentileschi, Luca Giordano (Annunciation) and Nicolas Poussin (Martyrdom of St. Erasmus, Nymph and Drinking Satyr). Apulian figurative painters are represented by Francesco Antonio Altobello (Presentation of Jesus in the Temple) for the 17th century, while the 18th-century is represented by Francesco de Mura (St Paul Apostle, St Vincent Ferrer) for the Neapolitan school, while the opening towards Europe is provided by the works of Tiepolo, Melendez and Hamilton.

Historical and artistic revolutions

Nineteenth-century art was rooted in the changes brought about by the French Revolution, marking the birth of an eclectic art without rigid schematics and marked by a personal quest for the self and the other. The works in the collection are mainly Italian, with the likes of Eugéne Delacroix (Scene of a Shipwreck), Giuseppe de Nittis (Trafalgar Square), Federico Rossano (Campagna, Landscape) and Gioacchino Toma (Ophelia).

Window on the contemporary

The works in the Contemporary section are divided between 19th and 20th century artists on the one hand, and works of the international avant-garde on the other. The art of the two centuries includes Giulio Aristide Sartorio (Female figures in front of a church) and Damaso Bianchi (Portrait of the caricaturist and satirical cartoonist Menotti Bianchi, nicknamed Friar Menotti). In the contemporary sphere, works by Joseph Stella (St. John the Baptist), Beatrice Wood (Portrait of a Woman, Situation), Man Ray (Study of a Female Figure), Gaetano Peviati (Women at the Sepulchre) are of considerable interest.