NICOLÒ DORIGATI. In the Sign of the Baroque

The Diocesan Museum of Trento presents the first monographic exhibition dedicated to Nicolò Dorigati (Trento, 1662 – 1740/1742), one of the leading figures of Trentino painting between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. For almost fifty years, Dorigati worked primarily for the Church, creating altarpieces, decorative cycles and portraits for churches, convents and local families. His extensive body of work is widely dispersed throughout the region and had never before been studied and presented as a whole.

For the first time, the exhibition brings together a significant group of his works, from the Diocesan Museum of Trento, Buonconsiglio Castle and other locations and collections across the region. Several paintings from the Museum’s storerooms are being shown to the public for the first time, while a number of works have been restored or undergone conservation treatments specifically for the exhibition. The exhibition explores the artist’s training in Bologna, his relationship with important patrons such as the Lodron family, and his role in the artistic culture of the late Baroque in Trentino.

At the heart of the exhibition is the reconstruction of the furnishings of the church of Santa Croce in Lodrone, now deconsecrated and profoundly altered during the nineteenth century. The large canvases depicting the Stories of the True Cross, painted by Dorigati for the presbytery, are reunited with surviving fragments of the sculptural ensemble by Cristoforo Benedetti. An installation combining artworks and multimedia technology makes it possible to virtually reconstruct the appearance of the former presbytery, bringing back to memory a place that has almost disappeared.

The exhibition is the result of a research and collaborative project involving the Diocesan Museum of Trento, Buonconsiglio Castle – Provincial Monuments and Collections and the Superintendency for Cultural Heritage of the Autonomous Province of Trento. The exhibition is accompanied by the first monograph dedicated to Dorigati, featuring a complete catalogue raisonné of his works.