ROME.- Following the major monographic exhibitions devoted to Lorenzo Lotto in Venice in 1953 and in Bergamo, Paris and Washington in 1998, the Scuderie del Quirinale presents, for the very first time here in Rome, an exhibition covering the entire artistic output of this spectacular and solitary master of the Italian Renaissance who, leaving the tranquil provinces of the Veneto and Marche behind him, lived briefly in Rome itself, but the city showed at the time that it never really understood his work. "Alone, without loyal help or solace, and sorely troubled in his mind", as he was to describe himself, he resumed the itinerant life and ended his days as an oblate in the Santa Casa di Loreto in the Marche. Born in the 15th century, Lorenzo Lotto managed in a thoroughly original and independent fashion to reconcile the traditional elements of the great painting of his era with certain aspects that already herald the great age of the Baroque.

After his initiation into the evocative compositional style of Giovanni Bellini, Lorenzo learned from Antonello da Messina to probe the human soul and to tell its story on canvas, portraying it on a stage where his first true source of inspiration was that great German artist Albrecht Dürer.

The Lorenzo Lotto exhibition takes its rightful place in the Scuderie del Quirinale's tradition of devoting major monographic exhibitions to the leading lights of Italian art year after year. The exhibition hosts 57 crucial works by the master, including works both "sacred" and "profane", from his large altarpieces to his portraits that are crucial to gain a full understanding of Lorenzo Lotto's artistic career and his life and times, and to highlight his vision and his poetry. The visitor will thus be able to admire his flashes of cold light and his unusual and masterly new take on perspective, underscored by the looks and gestures of figures engaged in mute dialogue, or his mysterious and disturbing vision of nature.

Lorenzo Lotto at the Scuderie del Quirinale is all of this and much more: from the Polittico di San Domenico from Recanati (which is to be restored in an open workshop specially organized inside the exhibition itself) to the Jesi Deposizione, and from the unforgettable Recanati Annunciazione with its small cat terrified by the Angel's sudden appearance, to the sumptuous Madonna del Rosario from Cingoli and to his last work, the moving and mysterious Presentazione al Tempio from Loreto. The exhibition also hosts such celebrated and extremely rare "profane" works as the La Castità mette in fuga Cupido e la Lussuria from the Pallavicini collection, and his most famous portraits, such as the Triplice ritratto di orefice from Vienna or the Ritratto d'Uomo con Cappello di Feltro from Ottawa.

The original layout of the exhibition offers visitors the chance to view, at a measured and thought-provoking pace, the key works from the places where Lorenzo Lotto lived and worked - Bergamo, the Marche and the Veneto - alongside those lent by museums all around the world, from the Louvre and the National Gallery in London to the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, the Metropolitan Museum of New York and the National Gallery in Washington. This complex exhibition is accompanied by an elegant catalogue published by Silvana Editoriale.