Image: Museo di Capodimonte, Naples
Museo di Capodimonte has opened a new display in Room 18 that brings together six canvas paintings by Annibale and Agostino Carracci, shown as copies of the lost frescoes Correggio made for the apse of the Church of San Giovanni Evangelista in Parma. The installation, announced on 30 July 2026, presents the works after restoration and places them in a single room for the first time.
The group belongs to the Farnese Collection and includes 'San Giovanni Battista e angeli', 'San Giovanni Evangelista e angeli', 'San Benedetto' and 'San Mauro', all of which were recently restored after coming from the museum’s storerooms. Two further canvases, 'Incoronazione della Vergine' and 'Cristo in Gloria', had already been restored in 1996 and are now displayed alongside the newly treated works.
According to the museum, the recovery makes it possible to reassemble the complete group made by Annibale and Agostino Carracci around 1586 to preserve the memory of Correggio’s fresco cycle, which was then in danger of being destroyed. The display therefore offers visitors a rare chance to see the full set together, rather than in separate storage or dispersed presentation.
The restoration was financed through Art Bonus and took a year to complete. The conservation work focused first on the textile supports, which had suffered from loss of tension, swelling and tears, and required replacement of the original frames, which were no longer suitable. The museum also reports that surface deposits and oxidation had significantly impaired the legibility of the paintings before treatment.
Capodimonte says the intervention has made it possible to appreciate the painterly quality of the canvases more clearly and to reconsider their role as testimony to Correggio’s importance in Emilia’s artistic tradition. The museum describes Correggio as a master of the Emilian school whose work was studied and copied by generations of artists.
The project was supported by a first diagnostic campaign, which shed light in part on the works’ technique and will be followed by further study within 'Officina Capodimonte – Laboratorio congiunto di ricerche tecniche e scientifiche'. For now, Room 18 is the setting for the reunited ensemble of Carracci copies, restored and displayed together at Museo di Capodimonte in Naples.
