The story
In 1789 an earthquake struck Città di Castello in Umbria and damaged an altarpiece that Raphael had painted there around 1500, when he was about 17. The panel was later cut up and its pieces scattered. One of them, the head and shoulders of an angel, now hangs in Brescia, in the Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo. For decades scholars doubted it was Raphael's, until the attribution was confirmed again in the early 20th century.
The angel came to Brescia with Count Paolo Tosio, a local aristocrat who visited Rome in 1807 and 1808 and came home devoted to Raphael and to the neoclassical art of his own day. In 1832 he left the city his paintings, sculpture, drawings and prints. With them came a second Raphael, Christ Blessing, a small panel of around 1505 in which the risen Christ raises his hand and shows the wounds of the Passion.
In 1884 another count, Leopardo Martinengo da Barco, left Brescia his own collection and his palace on what is now Piazza Moretto, and the two gifts eventually became one gallery there. After a renovation that lasted nine years it reopened in March 2018, with more than 800 works in 21 rooms. Near the Raphaels hangs Lorenzo Lotto's Adoration of the Shepherds, painted around 1534, and the gallery has a strong group by Giacomo Ceruti, who worked in Brescia in the 18th century and painted its beggars and porters.
