Beato Angelico and Bartholomeus Spranger's Last Judgments Compared in Turin Exhibition

Turin's Musei Reali presents a focused study exhibition titled 'Beato Angelico negli occhi di Bartholomeus Spranger. Giudizi Universali a confronto' in its Spazio Scoperte gallery. The exhibition juxtaposes two versions of The Last Judgment separated by over a century: one by the early Renaissance Dominican friar Beato Angelico (c. 1395–1455) and another by the Flemish Mannerist Bartholomeus Spranger (1546–1611). Angelico's work, an iconographic invention drawing from Augustine of Hippo's City of God, returns to Turin alongside his Madonna dell'Umiltà after a Florentine exhibition. Spranger's 1571 copper panel, commissioned by Pope Pius V for the Dominican convent in Bosco Marengo, directly references Angelico's composition while inserting contemporary Counter-Reformation figures like the Pope himself, Saint Charles Borromeo, and Saint Ignatius of Loyola. Both paintings employ a tripartite structure with Christ the Judge flanked by saints, open tombs below, and the blessed guided to heaven while the damned are driven to hell. The exhibition provides scientific study results and iconographic panels to help visitors decode the complex theological narratives. Spranger, who trained in Flanders and traveled through France, Milan, Parma, and Rome before serving Rudolf II in Prague, created his version over a hundred years after Angelico's, demonstrating lasting artistic influence across eras.