It is perhaps the most famous painting by this Genoese artist, who ended his career in the service of Philip II of Spain, whose pictorial process, rather articulate, starts from a gigantism of mannerist mold to arrive at an essential painting, made of almost geometric compositions, whose rigour is emphasized by limited shades in the range and plastered according to simple chords.
The cultural context that determined this "nocturnal" choice was its adherence to the most spiritual tendencies of the Catholic Reformation, while the domestic intonation, of great communicative impact, is aimed at promoting the sacred fact, hinged on the personal and intimate devotion of the client.

The painting (1570-1575) takes its title from the dim light of a candle that can be seen at the edge of the composition.
In reality, what highlights the delicate bending of Mary towards the breastfeeding Child, the cradle that will soon welcome him and the gesture of St Anne who, suspended the spinning, lovingly recommends silence to John and the profile of Joseph that, turned away, is going to another room, leaving women the warm intimacy of this moment, is a grazing light, external, cold. The figure of Jesus, on the other hand, is the only one that emerges completely from the shadows: his pearly flesh seems to shine with its own light, giving the scene a mystical atmosphere.

This great painting by Luciano Borzone, a Genoese painter very close to the ways of the Lombard artists Procaccini, Crespi and Cerano, constituted the altarpiece of the chapel of San Giovanni in the church of Santo Spirito in Genoa, of which Borzone had signed the entire decorative apparatus. It consisted of six smaller canvases, unfortunately dispersed after the dissolution of the religious orders, implemented since 1798 by the Ligurian Republic, making it impossible today to rebuild the whole.
Borzone’s works "in order to be brightly coloured and very well studied in the poem induced Orazio Gentileschi to look for who was the author, and to visit him in his house to buy his friendship, which was between them while they lived inseparable"Thus Soprani, in his Vita de' Pittori e Scultori e Architetti Genovesi (1674), refers to the impression of an artist of fame as Gentileschi before the art of the Genoese master.
The mention of Gentileschi also provides the terminus ante quem of the execution of the work that is placed between 1620, the date of the construction of the chapel and 1621, when the master, during his stay in Genoa, saw it.
It is a youthful work, therefore, but already a masterpiece, in which the master manages to cleverly combine the Venetian culture with the Tuscan. The sobriety of the stage, on which they play a dazzling color and chiaroscuro lighting effects, elegantly highlights the grandeur of a ceremony meditated, solemn, but at the same time affectionate. The delightful scene of the cherubs intent on interpreting the inscription on the bindello forgotten by the Baptist, is a test of skill in the rendering of soft chiaroscuro, contributing to attenuate the austere tone of the ensemble.

With Saint Francis in ecstasy comforted by the angel opens the selection of works by Gioacchino Assereto, one of the most gifted protagonists of the Genoese school of painting of the seventeenth century. Having arrived at Palazzo Bianco in 1898, following the purchase of the Palazzo Patrone in Piazza della Zecca, it is a work of great quality but problematic in terms of dating, to be placed perhaps shortly before 1630.

Performed with a sensitive technique, it is a very concentrated composition, to which dramatic light version add acute notes white lumeggiature. He interprets ecstasy as a lacerating event: the bruised flesh of the saint, his robe, his hands with stigmata, the skull that emerges from the shadow express a precise concept of Imitatio Christi, which culminates in physical contact between Christ and Francis, whose head, with clear symbolic intent, covers that of the Crucifix.

The dense composition, but not suffocated, less torn than other works by Assereto, focuses on the figure of Christ (grandiose in proportions but classically elegant in the positure of the body by the soft flesh permeated with light) surrounded by brutal and brazen executioners, from which emanates, especially in the vibrant expression of pain of the face, a suffering but contained emotionality. Datable at the end of 1620, and purchased in 1966, the painting of the Genoese author appears permeated with Lombard culture, but it seems stimulated also by the lesson of Giulio Cesare Procaccini and affected by the study of works by Van Dyck present in Genoa

In the great "nocturnal" painting of the Cambiaso Palace in Strada Nuova, Assereto depicts the suicide of the Roman tribune Marco Porcio Cato who, at the outbreak of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, took the latter’s side and followed him to the East. After the killing of Pompey and the defeat of his followers, Cato decided to end his life by piercing his belly with a sword, but was rescued and medicated; during the night, left alone, he tore the bandages and, reopening the wound, caused his own death with clear determination. The night setting of the crowded scene, the choice to represent the most tragic of the episode, as well as the use of an artificial light from torches, that accentuates the exasperated gestures of the characters and focuses attention on the hand of Cato and his sword - instrument of the tragic act - appear elements that contribute to infuse the composition a tone agitated by figurative drama.
The canvas - datable to the years immediately following 1639, when the sources report news of a Roman stay of the painter - shows the influence of Nordic caravaggeschi as Matthias Stomer and Gerrit van Honthorst and reveals the great emotional and expressive force of the painting of this artist. The painting by Assereto, however, was attributed by nineteenth-century historiography to van Honthorst, who was also referred to as the author of the biblical subject La maga di Endor evokes for Saul the shadow of Samuel, work that was the pendant of Cato when the painting was in the collection of the marquises Cambiaso.

Descended from an established family of painters and raised in a fervent intellectual environment, Valerio Castello was a very early artist, able to overcome the teachings of even established local masters, to look at models of international importance: Procaccini, Correggio, Parmigianino, Veronese, Rubens and Van Dyck are the landmarks of the artistic path of this painter who played a pivotal role, although in his short life, in the transition from baroque to rococo aesthetics, acting as one of the most original and innovative personalities of the seventeenth century, not only Genoese.
In this small but delightful painting he shows an absolute mastery in receiving and reworking the stimuli of the great masters and, together, provides a masterful representation of intimate and delicate maternal love.
The tender gesture of the Virgin, intent on covering the Child without disturbing his sleep, is resolved in a graceful composition, in which the soft pastel shades are treated with a fresh and agile pictorial vein. The brushstroke spreads the color now with transparent veils, which make the lightness of the veil and the sheets where the child is beautifully laid, on which the painter pauses to emphasize infant grace and sweetness, now for fuller backgrounds, found in the red drape on the background and in the dress of the Madonna.
The elongated profile of the Virgin, the tapered fingers, the elegance of the movement closely resemble the women of Parmigianino, but the style is less artificial and more direct, mediated by compositional schemes that refer to Van Dyck, of which, also, Valerio provides a personal, very original interpretation.