Diotti was working on the cardboard of The Pontida Oath in September 1842, as deduced from some letters written to Germani. Diotti finished it at the end of that year and he began painting the canvas in October 1843, with many interruptions caused by his health problems.
He used some friends’ portraits as characters of this big painting: the librarian from Bergamo Agostino Salvioni, the literatus, bibliophile and patriot from Casalmaggiore Anton Enrico Mortara and the pedagogy scholar Ferrante Aporti, who had recurring contacts with Diotti.
Some of these portraits reappear in illustrations or in the studies for the painting, which are kept in the Museum. Some of them, as this canvas, are definitely originals, realized as preparatory studies or as gifts for his friends; others, instead, are students' studies or preparatory copies. They frequented Diotti's home, as confirmation of the"construction site" climate around this last great work of the master.
Donated by Lina Ravera Mazzani, 1998
