The initiative is organised by the Civic Museums of Pavia and by the Promoting and High Coordination Committee for the Quincentenary of the Battle of Pavia, composed of the Municipality of Pavia, Fondazione Monte di Lombardia, the Chamber of Commerce of Cremona–Mantua–Pavia, and the University of Pavia, with the valuable support of Intesa Sanpaolo, Fondazione Cariplo and Fondazione Bracco.

Through works by great masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Ambrogio Bergognone, Bernardino Zenale and Pietro Perugino, the exhibition offers a prestigious and unique testimony to the splendid artistic and cultural flourishing that Pavia experienced during the Renaissance. In one of the most iconic periods in the country’s history, the city was in fact an extraordinary artistic, political and cultural crossroads between Northern Europe and Italy.

A highlight of the exhibition is the spectacular visual depiction of the battle, provided by the seven monumental tapestries from the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte in Naples, all exceptionally granted on loan for the occasion. They were woven between 1528 and 1531 by the Flemish workshop of Jan and Willem Dermoyen after designs by Bernard van Orley, to celebrate the victory of the imperial troops of Charles V over the French army led by King Francis I.

The tapestries are reunited in the city that inspired them, following a major restoration campaign and three major exhibitions in the United States, to restore to the public the complete visual narrative of the battle, captured with a pictorial and symbolic sensibility of striking modernity.

A distinctive feature of the exhibition is the creation of a true dialogue between paintings, drawings, sculptures, illuminated manuscripts and decorative art objects from prestigious Italian and international institutions such as the Pinacoteca di Brera, the Sforza Castle in Milan, the Veneranda Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence, the Certosa of Pavia and its museum, the Musée d’art et d’histoire in Geneva, the Royal Collection in Windsor and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

For the occasion, a magnificent polyptych created by the Lombard master Ambrogio Bergognone for the Certosa has been reassembled within the exhibition itinerary; its panels are now divided among different locations and owners. Thanks to the support of Fondazione Bracco, visitors will be able to view the results of non-invasive diagnostic analyses carried out on some panels of the polyptych by a team of experts from the University of Milan, the IUSS–Pavia spin-off DeepTrace Technologies, and the Centro Conservazione e Restauro La Venaria Reale.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by Dario Cimorelli Editore.

In addition, the extraordinary sixteenth-century wooden choir, inlaid and painted, from the church of San Marino in Pavia will be presented to the public, having been specially restored and installed at the Civic Museums.