Sections

The sixteenth-century paintings in this room were commissioned from artists of the regions Emilia Romagna, and Tuscany. The Head of the Virgin and the Head of the Pharisee by Dosso Dossi of Ferrara, one of the most important Italian painters of his day, are the only surviving fragments of the altarpiece he created in 1534 for the Bosi Chapel in Faenza Cathedral where a seventeenth-century copy is displayed today.
The early sixteenth-century paintings representing the Virgin and Child, by Giacomo and Giulio Francia (Bologna), and Luca Longhi (Ravenna), show the classical imprint and gentleness of Raphael’s style.
Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio received the commission for the Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine for the Ospedale di Santa Sofia a Galatea, near Forlì, in 1519. Painted with his workshop assistants, the panel is still informed by the symmetry of fifteenth-century models.