Disegno is an Italian world meaning “drawing”.
For Renaissance theoreticians it meant something more – the non-verbally expressed inner idea, essence and spirit of a work of figurative art. Its primary and immediate physical expression is the work of graphic art: the drawing that the artist produces if not for himself, them for those whom he knows personally, and the print, intended to convey it to the external audience.
The exhibition of 15th- and 16th-century Italian art is devoted to the question of what forms the disegno interno assumed on becoming externalized in the work of various Renaissance artists and the later Mannerists. The planned display will have four sections. The first will be devoted to the earliest graphic art to be found in the Hermitage collection: drawings by Luca Signorelli, Francesco Francia, Ercole de’ Roberti and Filippino Lippi, prints by Mantegna and Cristofano Robetta. The second section will be built around the School of Raphael. The third presents the Mannerist print and drawing: works by Parmigianino, Cambiaso and others. The final section will be given over to the Venetian school.
