Our story
Anni '60
Galleria Michelangelo was founded in 1967, in the ancient suburb of Saint Alessandro in Bergamo , by the artist Vittorio Bellini and his wife Margherita. Having always been passionate about art , they decided to display artwork ranging from ancient to contemporary .
Anni '70
In 1975 Galleria Michelangelo moved to a bigger location in via A. Locatelli. Approximately 10 years later the three daughters, Manuela, Raffaella and Beatrice, who grew up with the same passion and sensibility for art as their father, decided to work alongside their parents in the gallery, which has now expanded and requires new resources.
Vittorio Bellini’s frequent travels within Italy and abroad, enabled him collect and study important antique paintings, as well as to meet artists and art critics.
During his stay in Moscow and Leningrad, on the occasion of his exhibition there, he went deeper into the art and spirituality of Russian icons.
Anni '80
In the 1980s, the gallery introduced into his portfolio some contemporary artists of international level, organising individual and group exhibitions in order to attract even a younger public.
In 1989 Manuela Bellini inaugurated in Via Broseta in Bergamo, the Bellini Art Gallery - focused on African and contemporary art, that soon became the meeting spot for artists and fans.
The cultural activities of both galleries expands through loans and collaborations with museums, foundations, associations and Italian and foreign institutions.
As part of the local art programs, galleries promote, in collaboration with the administration of various municipalities, the organisation of Painting Exhibitions and Awards, bringing to the public new artists who now appear in the international art scene.
Anni '90
In 1995 Beatrice Bellini opened the Galleria d’Arte Due Bi, which focused on paintings and artistic objects from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, following the different artistic movements between School of Barbizon and the first École de Paris.
For over a decade, the gallery has been Bergamo’s reference point for French art and culture, organising important exhibitions, often in collaboration with French institutions, and cultural meetings dedicated to the great poets Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine and Mallarmé.
Since 1996, Raffaella has run the Galleria Michelangelo in via Locatelli with the precious collaboration of his father Vittorio with whom she shared their love for art .
A family of gallery owners, scholars and art lovers.
Anni 2000
Over the last twenty years the gallery has specialised in French painting, from Post-Impressionism to the second École de Paris.
Anticipating the trends of the field, the galleries have and have now joined online sales channels using dedicated portals.
In 2008, anticipating the trends of the field, the galleries have merged their headquarters in Via Broseta 15, in the frame of one of the city's most fascinating historic towns.
The gallery is directed by Raffaella Bellini, whose direction focuses on historical and consolidated artists from the national and international scene, but also on painters less celebrated and sometimes forgotten by critics.
For more than 50 years of activity, Galleria Michelangelo has organised about 500 exhibitions, both personal and collective. For the most important of them, catalogues and volumes have been published.