The exhibition presents some of Albrecht Dürer’s absolute masterpieces: the celebrated Madonna and Child, made at the end of the 15th century during one of his famous educational trips to Italy, and a series of engravings including Melencolia I.

Arriving from the prestigious collections of the Fondazione Magnani Rocca, known as the “Villa dei Capolavori [Villa of Masterpieces]”, the works by the Master of Nuremberg are taken as the supreme symbol and at the same time the starting point for this exhibition to investigate two universal themes that have fascinated philosophers, artists, theologians, writers, doctors and thinkers since the dawn of time: motherhood and melancholy.

If in Dürer’s portrayal of motherhood one can easily recognise the paradigms of eternal and absolute love, the human and spiritual values of the Christian tradition and a profound knowledge of the stylistic features of Italian art, Melencolia I, undoubtedly the most famous of the German master’s engravings, has always been the subject of interpretation due to its numerous symbolic references, such as the hourglass, the scales, the magic square, the compass and the famous polyhedron with two truncated points.

Taking the lead from Dürer, “mater et melancholia” live on in the exhibition in 70 works by great artists from different periods, such as Umberto Boccioni, Felice Casorati, Giorgio de Chirico, Lucio Fontana,  Giorgio Morandi, Giovanni Segantini, Gino Severini, Mario Sironi and Adolfo Wildt.