Exhibition
The twentieth anniversary is the opportunity to exhibit in the museum rooms for the first time an important donation, the “Gernetto nativity scene” by Francesco Londonio (1723-1783), so named after the Gernetto villa in Lesmo, in Brianza, for which it was created, probably commissioned by Count Giacomo Mellerio.
The nativity scene, already in the Cavazzi della Somaglia collections, heirs of Mellerio, has arrived in the Museum collections thanks to the generous donation by Anna Maria Bagatti Valsecchi.
The “Gernetto nativity scene” is made up of a group of around sixty figures (including the Holy Family with the Three Kings, some shepherds, pages, children, farmers, but also animals, sometimes inserted in actual scenic scenes) painted in tempera on shaped paper and cardboard. Francesco Londonio, a Lombard artist specialized in rural scenes, animals and – indeed – nativity scenes, probably created them around the 1760s and 1770s, at a time when his activity was particularly appreciated by clients made up of the ancient and new Lombard nobility. The discovery of the nativity scene allowed the start of studies, which will need to be further investigated, but it is very likely that the works originally constituted three distinct groups of “paper nativity scenes”; in two of these the hand of Londonio can be distinguished while a third small group of figures refers to one of his imitators.
The exhibition is part of the celebrations for the twentieth anniversary of the Museo Diocesano .
