De arte pingendi. Painting in the Records of the Monte di Pietà di Roma

Palazzo Sciarra Colonna – Historical Archive

The exhibition “De arte pingendi. Painting in the Records of the Monte di Pietà di Roma” takes its inspiration from Dalí’s work “50 Magical Secrets of Painting”, a volume in which he praises the masters of the Renaissance (Raphael, Leonardo, Bramante, Palladio) as well as his great contemporary Pablo Picasso.
The documents on display illustrate the significant and still little-explored relationship between the Monte di Pietà and art in general, particularly painting, both in the form of direct commissions and as an integral part of its artistic and devotional heritage. The pictorial and sculptural themes represented in works commissioned by or donated to the Monte di Pietà have in fact contributed to defining the iconography of charity and mercy—values that the institution particularly favoured.
The exhibition is enriched by two prestigious loans: Leonardo da Vinci’s *Treatise on Painting* (1540), from the Vatican Apostolic Library; and Raphael Sanzio’s letter, in collaboration with Baldassarre Castiglione, addressed to Pope Leo X (1519), from the State Archives of Mantua.

Lectures:

Painting according to Leonardo. Reflections on the Treatise featured in the exhibition of the Historical Archive of Fondazione Roma

On Wednesday, 11 March at 6:00 PM, the Museo del Corso presents a lecture dedicated to Leonardo da Vinci’s Treatise on Painting, a fundamental work in the history of art and in defining the role of the artist in modern culture.

Compiled by Francesco Melzi from Leonardo’s notes, the Treatise was the first to grant painting the status of a scientific discipline: a practice based on observation, rationality, and method, rather than solely on artistic inspiration. The lecture will reconstruct the cultural context in which Leonardo worked in Rome and will explore the history of the manuscript, now preserved in the Vatican Apostolic Library.

Speakers include Don Giacomo Cardinali – Deputy Prefect of the Vatican Apostolic Library – and Dr. Francesca Parrilla – art historian, Department of 15th–16th Century Art, Vatican Museums.

The event offers the public an opportunity to explore Leonardo’s theoretical thought and the significance of one of the most precious documents of his intellectual legacy.