The Musée du Louvre and the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg are joining forces for an outstanding exhibition based on the collection built up by the Marquis Campana mostly between the 1830s and the 1850s. The Louvre Museum and the Hermitage Museum join forces for an exceptional exhibition on the very rich collection of the Marquis Campana, essentially constituted between the 1830s and the 1850s. With this collection, the most ambitious private collection of the 19th century, the Marquis Campana intended to give an image of the Italian cultural heritage, both ancient and modern. But the collection was seized after a resounding trial for embezzlement which was brought in 1857 and sold by the pontifical state. Its dispersion across Europe has aroused an emotion that testifies to its importance in Italian and European cultural consciousness. Major works of the collection were acquired in 1861 by Tsar Alexander II and came to enrich the collections of the Hermitage Museum. The rest - more than 10,000 items - was bought by Napoleon III and shared between the Louvre Museum and many provincial museums. Many primitives from the Campana collection, such as Botticelli's Madonna and Child , were later grouped together at the Petit Palais in Avignon, which opened in 1976.