Pinacoteca civica Melozzo degli Ambrogi

Forlì's Civic Art Gallery Melozzo degli Ambrogi traces painting from the fourteenth-century school of Forlì through the Renaissance and into modern Italian art.

Why it matters

Founded in 1838, the gallery grew from works transferred to the commune after the Napoleonic suppressions and from acquisitions promoted by Count Pietro Guarini. Donations by Guarini and Canova's friend Melchiorre Missirini helped shape the collection. It bears the name of Melozzo degli Ambrogi, the fifteenth-century master of perspective born in Forlì, and preserves both local painting and later national collections.

What to notice

Early works include the Maestro di Forlì's Trittico con Storie della Vergine e Santi and the detached fresco known as Il Pestapepe. Panels by Beato Angelico and Lorenzo di Credi show Florentine influence in Romagna. The Renaissance collection includes Marco Palmezzano, Baldassarre Carrari, Nicolò Rondinelli, Francesco Zaganelli and Luca Longhi. Canova's marble Ebe, the Pedriali collection and the Verzocchi collection—Italian paintings on the theme of work—extend the story into later periods. The gallery also holds Morandi etchings and works by Silvestro Lega, Adolfo Wildt and Luigi Ghirri.

Context and history

The collection was first displayed at Palazzo della Missione and expanded through donations and acquisitions. It moved to the Ospedale Vecchio in 1922 and was reorganized in 1938 for an exhibition devoted to Melozzo and fifteenth-century Romagna painting; the Piancastelli donation arrived in the same year. The gallery later moved to the restored convent of San Domenico as part of Forlì's civic museum complex. Its collection brings together the regional school, the history of Italian art and twentieth-century works relating to labour.