The article deals with some drawings by Biagio Pupini. He was a key figure in the Bolognese art between 1520s and 1540s, but his personality is partially yet to be discovered. For this reason, the article will present some cultural background information about Biagio’s education and beginnings. The contribution will then focus on some drawings that can be attributed to Pupini, considering them in relation with paintings and frescoes executed during his career.

The drawing inv. 8471 by Bartolomeo Passerotti in the Louvre is studied from iconographic point of view: we argue to identify, in the two figures, the great poets Dante and Virgil traveling through Hell. Furthermore, for the drawing, inspired by the Divine Comedy, we propose a chronology around 1575, based on stylistic comparison, and we hypothesize as probable its original Florentine destination.

Lazzaro Tavarone is considered one of the most important exponents of Genoese painting between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He was a very prolific draftsman and drawing played a very important role in his work. One of his hitherto unknown drawings is kept in the Drawings and Prints Cabinet of the National Gallery in Prague. It is a preparatory study for the fresco in the choir of the Genoa cathedral. The drawing depicts the Martyrdom of San Lorenzo. The article introduces the reader to the examination of the design and the culture in which the work is placed.

The paper deals with hitherto unpublished drawings or with published drawings whose destination is here unveiled; the sheets dealt with belong to many Italian and European public collection or have passed through the art market; they are here referred to artists working in the 16th century in Rome or in Lombardy.

«A map with no figure and our woman in the middle» miraculously escaped the fire that had devastated the school-house of the master Lombardino da Ripetrosa in Forli on the night between 4 and 5 February 1428. That night – as we are told by the painter and fifteenth-century chronicler Giovanni di Mastro Pedrino from Forli, pseudonym of Giovanni Merlini – the master’s house burned down entirely, so that «non ne romaxe altro che le mura e una carta con alcuna figura e nostra Donna in mezzo. E perche parve grande miracolo fo tolta dai calonixe de Santa Croxe con reve(re)ncia: e questa fa assa(e) miraculi». We will illustrate the engravings by Floriano Dal Buono for the decorations that in 1637 accompanied Bezzi’s account on the procession of 1636 for the translation of the woodcut with the Madonna del Fuoco into the new chapel of the Forli cathedral and we will propose Giovanni Battista Aleotti as a possible identification for their designer.

Paolo Pagani (1655-1716) is an artist whose work has not yet been fully explored. Based on the study of Pagani`s work, it is now possible to incorporate in his work an unknown preparatory drawing on the theme of the Miraculous Healing of a Blind Man by Jesus Christ. This rare drawing is of fundamental importance for the understanding of the style of the artist’s first production and could shed new light on the dating of other works by Pagani.

The article deals with a replica of the famous painting by Hans Rottenhammer depicting the Last Judgment, which is owned by the Sternberg family at the castle in Castolovice. The painting received only marginal attention and was considered the work of Rottenhammer. The article brings new information about provenance and possible authorship.

The essay focuses on the paduan sculptor and bronzist Tiziano Aspetti and the Gonzaga rulers. The author discusses the latest Aspetti’s mantuan activity and he adds an unpublished notary deed dating back to 1607 where are listed some goods of the sculptor, then in the hands of the mantuan inlayer Sebastiano Picchi.

The aim of the article is to investigate the role played by the Superintendent and art historian Armando Ottaviano Quintavalle (1894-1967) for the protection of Parma’s and Piacenza’s cultural heritage inside the Castle of Torrechiara, in Langhirano, during the Second World War. The article elaborates and deepens some results of the research conducted during my master’s thesis, starting from the archival sources preserved in Parma’s Library of the National Gallery, in the Monumental Complex of Pilotta. The first paragraph analyses the activities of the Superintendent at the Regia Galleria, then, the second one focuses on the development of the shelter established inside the Castle, for the protection of the artistic heritage of the province. Finally, the last paragraph explores the actions taken by Quintavalle’s “human capital”, that is, his employees, through a technical-logistical reconstruction of the events that occurred in Langhirano.