The story
The Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, in the hills of Lombardy, started as one man's bequest. Count Giacomo Carrara, a local collector and patron, left his pictures and an art school to the city, and the gallery opened in 1796. Unlike collections built from royal spoils, this one was assembled by connoisseurs of the northern Italian Renaissance who knew exactly what they were buying.
That focus shows on the walls. The gallery is strong in the painters of Venice and Lombardy, among them Pisanello, Giovanni Bellini, Mantegna and Lotto, and its single most famous piece is a small early Raphael, the 'Saint Sebastian', a serene young man holding an arrow rather than pierced by it.
After a long closure the gallery reopened in 2015, rehung so that Bergamo's own school of portraitists, unusually sharp and lifelike, hangs alongside the bigger names its founders chased across Italy two centuries ago.
Collection
15 works
Saint SebastianRaphael, 1501
Alzano MadonnaGiovanni Bellini, 1486
The Story of VirginiaSandro Botticelli, 1505
Mystical Marriage of St Catherine of Alexandria with Niccoló BonghiLorenzo Lotto, 1523
Portrait of Lionel d'EstePisanello, 1441
Portrait of Lucina BrembatiLorenzo Lotto, 1520
Lochis MadonnaGiovanni Bellini, 1476
Pietà with Madonna and St. John the EvangelistGiovanni Bellini, 1455
Madonna and Child enthroned between Saints Sebastian and Vincenzo FerrerAndrea Previtali, 1506
The Holy Family with Saint Catherine of AlexandriaLorenzo Lotto, 1533
Virgin and ChildAndrea Mantegna, 1490
Portrait of Giuliano de' MediciSandro Botticelli, 1479
Orpheus and EurydiceTitian, 1509
The Resurrection of ChristAndrea Mantegna, 1492
Man of SorrowsSandro Botticelli, 1500