Curated by Luigi Gallo, Anna Maria Ambrosini Massari, and Yuri Primarosa, and organized in collaboration with the Gallerie Nazionali Barberini Corsini in Rome, the exhibition showcases the fully modern creativity of the young painter through a selection of 56 paintings. The first of its kind in Urbino—a city frequented by the young Cantarini—the exhibition is also an opportunity to celebrate the addition of the Pesarese painter’s works to the collections of the Ducal Palace. These additions follow the deposit of the collection from the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Pesaro and the arrival of two large altarpieces from the Pinacoteca di Brera as part of the project 100 Works Return Home. The collection has been further enriched through a loan agreement with Intesa Sanpaolo, which includes five paintings by Cantarini.
The exhibition aims to present a selection of works by the Pesarese artist, whose pictorial corpus—already greatly expanded—will be further enhanced for this occasion by previously unseen works from public and private collections. Thanks to prestigious loans from Italian and European museums, important works by Cantarini hosted in the newly reinstalled historic spaces of the Ducal Palace will be shown alongside numerous masterpieces by the artist and his contemporaries, offering the public a comprehensive view of his artistic career in context.
The curatorial project seeks to explore still little-known aspects of Cantarini’s artistic production: his early work in his native region, his connections with the Barberini family—especially with Cardinal Legate Antonio Barberini Junior—, the functioning of his workshop, and, in the background, his relationship with Guido Reni in Bologna. This relationship was marked by a falling-out after the Transfiguration of Our Lord, commissioned by the Barberini in 1637 for the church of Forte Urbano in Castelfranco. As the Montefeltro dynasty faded from history under the assault first of the Medici and then of Urban VIII Barberini, the Pesarese painter developed an extraordinarily innovative artistic language, shaped by his training in the Marche region under the influence of Raphael and Barocci, combined with the model of Reni learned in Bologna between roughly 1630 and 1639, and by his study of antiquity during his Roman years (1640–1642) as part of the Barberini household. His original synthesis of classicism and naturalism, which can be traced to his return to Bologna after Guido Reni’s death in 1642 and the Barberini’s downfall marked by the War of Castro in 1641 and the pope’s death in 1644, marked the end of a glorious era and the beginning of new artistic horizons. His Roman stay represented a sort of return to the grand Bolognese style, and once back in Bologna, Simone focused heavily on invention and the elaboration of artistic projects. His language, which became a true personal style, did not look solely to the noble models of Urbino masters but opened up to a wide range of more contemporary influences from Rome and Bologna.
The exhibition centers on the following thematic sections: portraiture—for which, according to Carlo Cesare Malvasia (1678), Cantarini was “endowed with a particular gift” (Self-Portrait, Rome, Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica, Galleria Corsini; Portrait of Guido Reni, Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale; Portrait of Eleonora Albani Tomasi, Pesaro, Intesa Sanpaolo Collection; Portrait of Antonio Barberini Junior, Rome, Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica, Palazzo Barberini); secular themes (Allegory of Painting, San Marino, Cassa di Risparmio Collection; Hercules and Iole, Rome, private collection; Judgment of Paris, Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Pesaro, on loan to the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche in Urbino); and Cantarini’s relationship with other masters of his time, especially Reni. This will be illustrated in the exhibition through comparisons with works that Simone emulated, such as Saint Jerome (Paris, Galerie Canesso), David and Goliath (Urbino, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche – Volponi donation), Saint Joseph (Rome, Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica, Galleria Corsini), and Saint John the Baptist (London, Dulwich Picture Gallery).
