Renaissance art in Bergamo and Brescia

[4] The Martinengo Altarpiece (1513-1516) already showed some bold innovations, such as the arrangement of the throne of Mary and the saints with a church nave behind them (and not an apse as was typical), the dome open to the sky (a reference to Mantegna), the intense characterization of the characters and the vibrant light, which generate an unstable effect in the scene.

[4] In addition to the fresco cycles rich in iconographic novelties, such as that of the Suardi Chapel in Trescore Balneario, and besides the intense and close portraits, it was above all the ambitious project of the inlays of the choir of Santa Maria Maggiore that kept him busy until his departure in 1526.

[4] The very first, vague hints of a new decorative and compositional style that surpassed the International Gothic were to be found, in the field of painting, in some "top-down" works in medieval fifteenth-century Brescia, primarily Antonio Vivarini's polyptych of Saint Ursula for the church of San Pietro in Oliveto.

[6] Other movements in this direction can be seen in sporadic works produced by the local culture in the second half of the century, such as the large panel of Saint George and the Princess attributed to Antonio Cicognara or a master related to him, where the aristocratic Gothic stylistic features imported to Brescia by Gentile da Fabriano in the lost chapel of San Giorgio al Broletto evolve toward new spatial and luministic proportions.

[9] The works he produced in this short period, not all of which have come down to us, demonstrate a general reworking of his artistic language in the light of the increasingly pressing Renaissance innovations, derived primarily from Leonardo da Vinci's teachings, while remaining faithful to his characteristic "archaizing" style.

Many interventions occurred in the palaces of the nobility of the time, especially in a city context: the cycle in the hall of honor of Palazzo Calini, now dispersed among the Victoria and Albert Museum, National Gallery and Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo, represents one of the finest productions of secular painting in early sixteenth-century Lombardy.

At the forefront of the painter's production, however, is the polyptych of St. Nicholas of Tolentino for the church of St. Barnabas, signed and dated 1495, a work of the highest value in which Civerchio reveals a vast composite culture derived from the teachings of Bergognone and Bernardino Butinone, connected with an effective painting technique and an accurate expressive realism of the characters.

Already in works from the beginning of the century, for example in the Adoration of the Cross with Saints Constantine, Helena, and Sylvester for the church of Santa Croce, one can find the compositional patterns and expressive attitudes that these masters, especially Moretto, would repeat in their early productions and then evolve into more mature models.

[11][13] Clear transitional features can also be found in the two panels with the Nativity and the Adoration of the Magi in the polyptych of the Madonna of Mercy in the church of Sant'Agata (c. 1520), where typically fifteenth-century forms are combined with a wide and deep spatiality, a softness of bodies and a chromatic richness with warm and luminous tones borrowed from the early production of Romanino and Moretto and from the new Venetian influences brought to local art by these authors.

To the general economic damage, superimposed on the already onerous reconstructions to be carried out after the sack, the Venetian Republic responded by offering reductions and sometimes exemptions from taxes, so that churches, convents and monasteries looted or completely destroyed by the "leveling" could be restored and rebuilt.

From around 1520 (the "leveling" was operated between 1516 and 1517) there was thus the emergence of a group of painters of almost the same age who, by blending their Lombard and Venetian cultural roots, achieved results of great originality in the peninsula's artistic panorama: Romanino, Moretto and Savoldo,[19] defined by the art historian Roberto Longhi as "the predecessors of Caravaggio.

"[20] In providential coincidence, in 1522 Titian's Averoldi Polyptych for the presbytery of the collegiate church of Santi Nazaro e Celso arrived in Brescia,[21] which would enjoy a very wide, immediate popularity among local artistic exponents and would constitute a basic point of reference in the execution of a whole series of new works of art.

[22] Without straying too far from Brescia in the following years he visited various sites, such as that of Cremona Cathedral (Passion of Christ, c. 1520), where he came into contact with Pordenone's magniloquent modes, and the small towns of the Brescian valleys (Breno, Bienno, Pisogne), where he left panels and frescoes with interesting accents to everyday reality, strongly represented in gestures, customs and expressions.

While in the large-format altarpieces the artist showed adherence to traditional schemes, open to Titian's influences, in the medium-sized works intended for private individuals he experiments with more original solutions drawing on a vast repertoire, even reaching as far as Hieronymus Bosch.

[26] The protagonist of this fortunate as well as brief period, cut short in 1512 with the invasion of the French and the subsequent sack of Brescia, was Gasparo Cairano, acknowledged author of works of the highest artistic level such as the ark of Sant'Apollonio, the Caprioli Adoration, the Martinengo Mausoleum, and, first and foremost, the cycle of the Caesars for the elevations of the Palazzo della Loggia, praised in print as early as 1504 by Pomponius Gauricus' De sculptura.

[27] Contemporaries of Cairano were other authors, often present in Brescia only for short periods of their careers, such as Tamagnino and the Sanmicheli workshop, along with other minor artists placeable in the master's circle, such as Antonio Mangiacavalli and Ambrogio Mazzola, while many of the sculptors of Venetian influence active in the city during the entire second half of the 15th century remain largely anonymous.