Domenico Tintoretto's 1585 Itō Mancho portrait welcomes visitors to the Italian Pavilion at the Osaka Expo

The beating heart of Bracco's participation in the Osaka Expo, however, is the Itō Mancho cultural project, which was presented at the Italian Pavilion with a scientific conference attended not only by Mario Vattani and Diana Bracco on video from Milan: Andrea Raos, Director of the Italian Cultural Institute, Rossella Menegazzo, Professor of East Asian Art History at the University of Milan, Gian Giacomo Attolico Trivulzio, President of the Poldi Pezzoli Museum and founder of the Trivulzio Foundation, Monsignor Alberto Rocca of the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Kōso Toshiaki, S.J, Former Chancellor of Sophia University, Maji Rhee, Dean of the Center for International Education, Waseda University, Takako Tamai, Adjunct Researcher, Aizu Museum Waseda University, Koshiro Sonoda, Director of the Osaka Office of the Nagasaki Prefecture and Isabella Castiglioni, Lecturer at the University of Milan Bicocca and Director of Research, Development and Innovation at the CDI-Centro Diagnostico Italiano.

The portrait of the young Itō Mancho, head of the first Japanese diplomatic mission sent to Europe in the 16th century, which is owned by the Trivulzio Foundation and arrived in Osaka on a flight operated by Ita Airways, a specialist in the transportation of sensitive shipments, is of artistic and above all symbolic importance for relations between Italy and Japan. The story of this boy's journey to the Belpaese - from his landing in Livorno, via Rome, Venice, courts, palaces, dignitaries and popes - is truly fascinating, and represents one of the very first moments of 'official' contact between our culture and that of Japan.

"We can only imagine the emotions that the young traveller and his companions must have felt when they saw the wonders of the Renaissance with their own eyes," says Diana Bracco. "Wonders that come alive in the beautiful concept of our Pavilion, designed by Studio Cucinella and inspired precisely by the Renaissance Ideal City, with its theatre, porticoes, piazza and Italian-style garden. It is beautiful that centuries later Itō Mancho still acts as a bridge between our cultures and as an amphitryon in the large exhibition space of the Italian Pavilion'.

The Bracco Group was also commissioned to carry out a comprehensive multidisciplinary diagnostic analysis campaign on the work.

"Before bringing the portrait of Domenico Tintoretto to Osaka, as is our custom, we carried out a series of diagnostic imaging examinations coordinated by our Foundation and supervised by the team of Prof. Isabella Castiglioni," adds Diana Bracco, who in addition to leading the Life Sciences multinational is also President of the Bracco Foundation. "For us, art and science are a winning combination, and for years we have been making our Group's expertise in imaging, a sector in which we are global leaders, available for the analysis and restoration of Italy's cultural heritage."

The non-invasive diagnostic analysis on Itō Mancho, which the visitor will be able to admire together with the video narrative curated by the creative team of Mauro Belloni and the Cromazoo next to the painting, offers the general public a surprising journey inside the painting: thanks to science, we will be able to penetrate the hidden layers of the work, lifting the veils of time and discovering the mysteries of art.