Image: Aperture, New York
La Galleria BPER opens its new cultural hub in L’Aquila on Thursday 3 September 2026, in Palazzo Farinosi Branconi, returned to the city after a substantial programme of restoration and refunctioning. The building houses ‘Scrigno di memorie. Paesaggi, colori e tradizione: cinque secoli di arte del Meridione’, which the organiser describes as a permanent route through the artistic history of Abruzzo and central-southern Italy from the fifteenth century to the early decades of the twentieth. La Galleria BPER lists the run as 3 September 2026 to 10 January 2027.
The display is drawn from a selection of the Corporate Collection BPER. It grew out of an intention to return to L’Aquila a significant part of the works that belonged to the historic collection of the Cassa di Risparmio della Provincia dell’Aquila, and the route built around that core traces the cultural relations that connected the city, from the Renaissance to the early twentieth century, with Marche, Umbria, Rome and Naples.
Among the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century works are Saturnino Gatti’s ‘Madonna con Bambino’, a polyptych by the Maestro dei Polittici Crivelleschi, and paintings by Cola dell’Amatrice. A section on the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries sets out the dialogue with the Neapolitan tradition through Luca Giordano, Mattia Preti, Salvator Rosa, Francesco Solimena and Paolo de Matteis. The nineteenth-century rooms turn to figures closely bound to Abruzzo, Francesco Paolo Michetti and Teofilo Patini, whose works address landscape, human experience and the social transformation of the region.
Among the more significant interventions in the recovery of the palazzo is the restoration of the Sala San Clemente, now fully accessible again following a combined programme of research, conservation and technological work. The building itself forms part of the museum narrative: its history, closely entwined with that of the city and of the Branconio family, is set in dialogue with the works on show.
The route is curated by Michele Maccherini, associate professor of early modern art history in the Department of Human Sciences at the University of L’Aquila, whose work centres on Renaissance and early modern painting in central Italy, collecting and the artistic history of Abruzzo; and by Luca Pezzuto, associate professor of art history and restoration in the same department, a specialist in the artistic culture of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries.
Visiting is by accompanied tour in timed slots, with bookings available. Opening hours are Thursdays from 2 to 7 p.m. and Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.; entry is ticketed.
The opening marks a further stage in ‘Poli Culturali BPER. Un Sistema di Patrimonio Diffuso’, the programme through which BPER converts historic premises of the group into places open to culture, research and public participation. La Galleria BPER also runs venues in Modena, Brescia, Ferrara, Genoa, Avellino, Milan, Sondrio and Sassari.
