Palazzo dei Diamanti
Ferrara

23rd September 2007
6th January 2008










Autumn 2007 sees the extraordinary return to Ferrara of a number of 15th century masterpieces that illustrate the level of art in the ancient capital city of the Este Family at the time of Duke Borso.

The richness of that figurative civilisation can be plainly seen in a fascinating exhibition focused on the figures of Cosmé Tura and Francesco del Cossa, contrasting interpreters, to a certain extent, of a distinctive pictorial language: the so-called "Officina ferrarese", or Ferrarese school of painting.

The exhibition will chart its birth and development around 1450, in a city animated by the presence of works by Leon Battista Alberti, Pisanello, Mantegna and Rogier van der Weiden, from the flourishing of miniatures to the painting of the study in the Belfiore Palace, leading to the frescos inside Schifanoia Palace; a visual translation of the political ambitions of the Este family and the culmination and conclusion of that exceptional moment in history.