The Cicognara Album Rediscovering Neoclassical Splendour

Ca’ Rezzonico [ENA] Venice — The Gusto Neoclassico. L’Album Cicognara exhibition at Ca’ Rezzonico – Museo del Settecento Veneziano presents an extraordinary opportunity to encounter one of the most compelling testimonies of Italian Neoclassicism, now on display in its entirety for the first time in nearly fifty years. Curated by Alberto Craievich, the show runs from 26 September 2025 to 23 February 2026, inviting visitors to immerse themselves in the refined world of early 19th-century artistic exchange.

At the heart of the exhibition is the Cicognara Album, a remarkable manuscript of 81 sheets assembled by Count Leopoldo Cicognara (1767–1834), an influential intellectual, president of the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice, and a central figure in the cultural life of his era. The volume, preserved by the Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe of the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, serves as a kind of liber amicorum — a book of friends — documenting Cicognara’s close relationships with the artists of his time.

The album features work by major Italian Neoclassical masters such as Vincenzo Camuccini, Andrea Appiani, Giuseppe Bossi, and the young Francesco Hayez, alongside French artists including François-Marius Granet, Lancelot-Théodore Turpin de Crissé, and Louis Léopold Robert. Of particular significance are the six drawings by Antonio Canova, whose friendship and artistic dialogue with Cicognara profoundly shaped both men’s cultural impact.

The sheets showcase a wide variety of graphic techniques — from pencil and pen to coloured chalks and watercolours — depicting views, portraits, landscapes, genre scenes, animals, and sacred and secular compositions. These works not only reveal the artistic diversity of Neoclassicism but also the cosmopolitan networks that animated early nineteenth-century European art.

Originally bound in an elegant case decorated with bronze friezes and classical cameos, the album was disassembled in the late 1970s for conservation reasons. Now meticulously restored by the Venice International Foundation, it is once again presented as a complete corpus, allowing scholars and the public alike to appreciate its full scope. This exhibition offers an essential chapter in the story of Venetian and European Neoclassicism, shedding light on the interplay of artistic creation, intellectual exchange, and cultural patronage during a pivotal moment in art history.