Antonello da Messina's Largest Exhibition in Milan

Palazzo Reale in Milan hosts a landmark exhibition on Antonello da Messina, featuring 19 of his 35 attributed works, making it the largest show on the artist after the Scuderie del Quirinale exhibition. Curated by Giovanni Carlo Federico Villa, the display includes iconic pieces such as the Annunciata from Palermo, Ritratto dell'ignoto marinaio from Cefalù, Ritratto Trivulzio from Turin, San Girolamo nello studio from London, and Ecce homo from Piacenza. For the first time, notebooks and sketches by art historian Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle are exhibited alongside Antonello's works, showing how Cavalcaselle reconstructed the artist's catalogue. The exhibition emphasizes Antonello's modernity, capturing the intimate essence of humanity through visual and geometric synthesis, with a light and atmosphere of reality rarely achieved in later centuries. The Ritratto Trivulzio returns to Milan after being acquired by Turin as compensation for the failed purchase of the Trivulzio collection, creating a twinning between the two cities. The show also evokes the historical attempt by Galeazzo Maria Sforza to bring Antonello to Milan as court portraitist, a role later filled by Leonardo da Vinci.