Il Quarantotto di Faustino Joli. Dipingere il Risorgimento tra Bologna e Brescia

From Friday, April 10 to Sunday, July 19, 2026, the Museum of the Risorgimento in Bologna hosts the exhibition Faustino Joli’s Forty-Eight.

Faustino Joli (1814–1876), a renowned painter from Brescia known for his works depicting animals and landscapes, is also remembered for his paintings dedicated to the Italian Risorgimento, and especially for a series of canvases illustrating the Ten Days of Brescia, during which, in 1849, the city fiercely resisted Austrian repression. This historical moment is also reflected in a series of 77 small oil paintings, arranged in 9 panels, preserved at the Civic Museum of the Risorgimento in Bologna and depicting the uniforms of the various military units that took part in the First War of Independence (1848–1849).

The exhibition, organized 150 years after Joli’s death, revolves around this group of military figurines, still little known to the public and only partially displayed in the museum. This collection is among the most complete and of the highest quality known. It is presented in relation to drawings made around 1849 by Joli himself, found in a notebook preserved at the Queriniana Library in Brescia. One of the Brescia paintings, The Ten Days in Piazza San Barnaba, is exhibited in Bologna for the first time thanks to the collaboration with Fondazione Brescia Musei, and is placed in dialogue with the painting The Battle of August 8, 1848 in Bologna, by the painter Gaetano Belvederi (1821–1872). Finally, original uniforms and military equipment from 1848 are displayed, as described by Joli: among these, notable is a uniform of the Bolognese Legion, a volunteer corps that departed from the city and fought in Veneto during the First War of Independence, recently acquired by the museum. It is a unique artifact, whose attribution to that military unit was made possible precisely thanks to the figurines painted by Faustino Joli.

In collaboration with: Fondazione Brescia Musei; Institute for the History of the Italian Risorgimento – Bologna Committee; Associazione 8cento APS.