Publisher's Synopsis
Starting with an analysis of Raphael's Sposalizio della Vergine and its critical fortune, the intellectual, political and collecting context in late 18th-century Brescia is investigated, including the creation of private collections such as that of the Lechi family. The hitherto unpublished correspondence from the time of the noble Brescian family allows reconstructing the events of the painting from the donation by Citta di Castello to the Napoleonic general Giuseppe Lechi to the subsequent passages of the work, including some nineteenth-century episodes related to the painting, such as the restitution, the restoration work by Molteni and the execution of pictorial copies, engravings and prints.
