Введение c. Welcome in Gallery

Welcome to the Art Gallery, whose rooms occupy much of the first floor of the building. The collection of artworks here exhibited was built up in the course of four centuries thanks to bequests or donations of paintings to be sold and so provide the funds required for its charitable work. As  recorded on a plaque in the next room, the Gallery was opened to the public for the first time in 1973 by the enlightened policy of the Superintendent of the Pio Monte, Tommaso Leonetti di Santo Janni. With the help of Raffaello Causa (Government Superintendent of the Artistic and Historical Heritage), he carried out his plan to open the building of the Pio Monte della Misericordia to the general public, so revealing the rich private collection of paintings, dating from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, previously accessible only to a small number of scholars.

Following the earthquake that devastated Naples in 1980, the Gallery was again closed to protect  and preserve the collection. But in 2001, to mark  the foundation's four hundredth anniversary,  the Pio Monte embarked on an immense project to restore the building and its collections. The ancient premises were fitted with all modern security equipment and many paintings were restored, and in 2003 the Gallery was reopened to the public. The newly designed exhibition layout is based on the earlier one and has all the fascination of a museum-home open to visitors. The large salon in which we find ourselves is used for holding the two annual assemblies of the numerous members of the foundation, who here listen to the reports of the Superintendent and meet to discuss policy. It contains paintings by Francesco De Mura, who bequeathed all his paintings, his house and his studio to the Pio Monte della Misericordia. This important legacy is of great importance in the study of painting in Naples in the eighteenth century.