Palazzo Pepoli Campogrande – The Zambeccari Collection

Palazzo Pepoli Campogrande houses a selection of works collected by the Zambeccari, a prominent Bolognese family that became part of the restricted oligarchy that held civic power as early as the mid-15th century.
The picture gallery became more important during the 18th century thanks to the curation by Marquises Camilla (1656 -1731), Francesco (1682 -1767) and Giacomo (1723 – 1795). Giacomo had it set it up in the palace on Via de’ Carbonesi and in his will expressed the wish to donate the collection, once his family’s inheritance was depleted, to the Istituto delle Scienze [Science Institute]. However, the works became part of the patrimony of the then Regia Pinacoteca di Bologna [Royal Art Gallery of Bologna] only in 1884, at the end of complex legal proceedings.
Unlike the majority of the city’s aristocratic picture galleries, which have been widely dispersed over the centuries, the identity that had been conferred on the Zambeccari collection from the beginning has been preserved almost intact, and is therefore a fine example of the furnishings of an 18th-century Bolognese aristocratic palace.
As is typical of private collections, in addition to works on religious subjects, it includes numerous genre paintings, portraits and still lifes. Among the artists in the collection are Bartolomeo Passerotti, Denijs Calvaert, Ludovico Carracci, Elisabetta Sirani, Mattia Preti, Lorenzo Pasinelli, Francesco Solimena, Luca Giordano and Sebastiano Ricci.