On 11 November 1506 Julius II, after having placed himself at the head of his army of mercenaries and having marched with 2,000 infantry and 500 cavalry towards Perugia, arrived at his main destination: Bologna, the most important city of the Papal State after Rome. Bologna has been governed for decades, like a personal fiefdom, by the Bentivoglio family. In addition to the military weapon, the pope also used the spiritual one, excommunicating the Bolognese tyrant and paralyzing the religious as well as the political life of the city, being the only one as pope to be able to master this weapon. Bologna and its tyrant yield to the siege of papal troops. The entrance is deliberately spectacular, recalling that of the ancient Roman emperors or, before them, of Julius Caesar himself: the warrior pope is transported on a chariot pulled by white horses, triumphal arches are built to celebrate his glorious feat, coins to the people and praised verses to the chivalrous glory of the pope.
This event abruptly changed the history of Bolognese art, which had nevertheless had interesting developments throughout the fifteenth century, also thanks to the contribution of the same tyrants - patrons such as the Bentivoglio family and their rival families such as the Malvezzi or Marescotti. The artists had given life to a local indigenous language mitigated by influences from the nearby city of Ferrara. Thus, Lorenzo Costa and Ercole de' Roberti worked alongside Francesco Francia and Amico Aspertini. In the fifteenth century, outsider artists such as Jacopo della Quercia and Niccolò dell'Arca had also contributed to Bologna. With the arrival of the pope in Bologna, the artistic commissions continued and expanded even more as a political and affirmation tool. Some masterpieces such as the magnificent Palazzo Bentivoglio of John II was destroyed by popular uprisings incited by the pope and the French. However, Julius II undertook to create a new artistic environment in which local experiences soon came to terms with those of Rome: Michelangelo and Bramante were called to the city and worked on urban planning and decorative areas. Unfortunately, little remains of the two great artists, even the statue of Julius II by Michelangelo that stood on the facade of the town hall is destroyed. Local insurrections were not put down. The political situation was unstable, so much so that there was also a brief and ephemeral return in 1511 to the Bentivoglio lordship.
On the occasion of the exchange project between the Bolognese Pinacoteca and the National Gallery which envisaged the loan of the Ecstasy of Santa Cecilia in London and the consequent loan of the portrait of Julius II in Bologna, the wing of the museum dedicated to the Renaissance. Wing that ended with the Bolognese work by Raphael (Santa Cecilia) in front of the Perugino altarpiece. Now, the temporary arrival of the portrait has required a rethinking of the museum also in terms of coordinated image and dialogue between the works. In front of the Ecstasy of Santa Cecilia, created by Raphael for a noble Bolognese client between 1513 and 1515, is the famous London portrait created between 1511 and 1512, depicting Pope Julius II, originally Giuliano della Rovere , in a new way. With this work, Raphael introduces a new canon for portraiture: the pope is at the center of the canvas not as an aseptic hieratic figure, but as a real man, endowed with his own psychology and more intimate dimension. Here he is a meditative old man no longer the leader, the much hated and controversial pope. It is an extraordinary image, more intimate and close up, in a private dimension not in a public ceremony in which the pope is no longer the warrior but the peacemaker. In a more spiritual than temporal guise, where however the details of the pleated silk and the very precious rings betray a past of glory. An apparent serenity, therefore, of an elderly man who nevertheless conceals the aggressiveness and power of the past. When it was exhibited in 1513, a few months after the pope's death, there was a very high turnout of the public at the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome where the work had been placed. The new itinerary for visits to the Pinacoteca di Bologna explores the artistic journey relating to Renaissance art in Bologna from the time of the Bentivoglio family up to the coronation of Charles V. Among the emblematic works of this moment is the Ecstasy of Santa Cecilia by Raphael, created during the papacy of Leo X, which influenced present and future art. In contrast to Raphaelitism, Amico Aspertini, a painter faithful to his absolutely personal and anti-classical language, as evidenced by the Blessing Christ between the Madonna and Saint Joseph in the exhibition, which arrives here thanks to a loan from the Longhi Foundation of Florence. Then, there are the troubled years leading up to the Sack of Rome in 1527 which lead to Bologna another prominent personality: Parmigianino present in the city between 1527 and 1530. His refined and restless art is documented in the exhibition by comparison between the Santa Margherita della Pinacoteca and the Madonna di San Zaccaria, which comes from the Uffizi. With these works we arrive at the threshold of a new central moment for Bologna, that of the coronation of Charles V by Clement VIII, to whom the conclusion of the exhibition is reserved.
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