Galleria dell'Accademia Tadini

Count Luigi Tadini built himself a neoclassical palace on the shore of Lake Iseo and filled it with everything he believed a town should keep: Canova's funerary stele, Venetian painting, porcelain, a library, schools of music and drawing. Open to the public since 1828, the Accademia Tadini remains Lovere's drawing room.

Why it matters

The Galleria dell’Accademia Tadini was founded as an art institution in the Lombard nineteenth century and opened to the public in 1828. Its founding joined a father’s memorial to his son with an institute for art, music and drawing. Its collection includes works by Antonio Canova and Francesco Hayez.

What to notice

The Stele Tadini, executed between 1819 and 1821 and inaugurated that autumn, is Antonio Canova’s funerary memorial to Faustino Tadini, who died in 1799. The palazzo itself, completed in 1826 to designs by the architect Sebastiano Salimbeni, keeps its neoclassic order, with ceilings and walls painted by the scenographer Luigi Dell'Era. In the gallery, Venetian painting leads, with works reaching back to Lorenzo Veneziano and Jacopo Bellini; the collection also includes works by Bernardino Campi, Fra’ Galgario, Giacomo Ceruti and Francesco Hayez. Other collections include archaeological objects, porcelain, sculptures by Giovanni Maria Benzoni, musical instruments, and the Museo dell’Ottocento devoted to Lovere’s Risorgimento century.

Context and history

Luigi Tadini, born in Verona on 26 November 1745, met Canova in Rome in 1794-1795, and they became friends. After Faustino's death, the count asked Canova for a sculpture in the summer of 1818; the sculptor proposed instead a monument consecrated to the young man's memory, and the Stele was placed in the chapel built for it beside the new palace. Work on the palace began in 1820, it was completed in 1826, and the museum opened to the public in 1828. Tadini died at Lovere on 12 May 1829, leaving the Istituto di belle arti Tadini to the community by testament, with instructions for the gallery and schools of music and drawing, which trained sculptor Giovanni Maria Benzoni.