A major exhibition dedicated to the genius of Francesco Barbieri (1591-1666) was recently inaugurated at Palazzo Barberini in Rome.

Guercino had an innate ability that was immediately recognised even by the undisputed master of the period- Bruno Scorsonelli

Barbieri, known as ‘Il Guercino’ (the Squinter) because he was cross-eyed, was a major Italian artist of the 17th century. Born in the town of Cento, which lies between Bologna and Ferrara, he was active in Rome from 1621 to 1623.

Curated by Rosella Vodret and Fausto Gozzi, the director of the Municipal Art Gallery of Cento, the exhibition is both a significant tribute to Guercino and a tribute to Sir Denis Mahon, the eminent British historian, collector of Italian baroque art and an authority on the artist, who died last year aged 100.

The exhibition features works from museums and collections in Rome and Cento, as well as from the Cultural Heritage Fund of the Italian Interior Ministry.

It is being held in the renovated section of Palazzo Barberini, and gives visitors the opportunity to admire an extraordinary body of paintings covering the entire history of Guercino’s long artistic activity.

Guercino had an innate ability that was immediately recognised even by the undisputed master of the period, Ludovico Carracci, who in the young artist from Cento found a propensity towards new trends and relived a kind of continuity with his own art.

The familiar intense blue of the sky is imbued with an entirely new vigour in Guercino’s work.

Certain effects in his representations of thunderstorms had never been achieved previously and were already evident in the early Mystic wedding of St Catherine in the presence of St Carlo Borromeo of 1614-15 and in later works such as St Bernard of Siena and St Francis of Assisi with the Madonna of Loreto of 1618, which hangs in the Municipal Art Gallery of Cento.

After an intense beginning in his native Cento, in 1621 the artist was called to work in Rome under the patronage of the Bolognese Pope Gregory XV (Alessandro Ludovisi) and his nephew, Cardinal Ludovisi.

The decorations of Casino Ludovisi, a building and gardens near the Pincio quarter, were probably the first works executed by Guercino in Rome.

But the absolute masterpiece of his Roman period is the The Burial of Santa Petronilla, a monumental altarpiece now housed in the Capitoline Gallery. A smaller version of it is included in the exhibition.

Mahon rightly underlined the importance of this work as a watershed moment between Guercino’s youthful and more mature works.

It represents a change in style which was clearly due to the importance of the commission, the first of a series for St Peter’s Basilica, which appeared to have encouraged the artist to switch to a more classical style.

The Pope’s sudden death in 1623 and the realisation that he had lost his principal patron and protector were the main reasons for Guercio’s return to Cento.

Here the painter executed works commissioned by distinguished Roman patrons which are still in Rome and which are probably ascribable to the period of transition (1623-34) that followed his return to the Emilia region.

This particular stylistic period is well represented by Return of the prodigal son (Borghese Gallery) and by Portrait of Cardinal Bernardino Spada (Spada Gallery, Rome), completed in 1631.

Guercino’s mature years are characterised by renewed attention to a more classical manner regarding the chromatic spectrum used, which became soft and delicate, and a refined formal elegance and simplicity that brought him to increased clarity of composition.

Expressions of this tendency are seen in Cleopatra before Octavian Augustus from the Capitoline Gallery and the splendid Saul against David from Palazzo Barberini.

The exhibition remains open till April 29.