“Let's not call it an exhibition, it will be like crossing the doors of a large national museum, like visiting the Uffizi Gallery in Florence or the Capodimonte Museum in Naples”.
Vittorio Sgarbi, curator of the exhibition, evokes the collections of two prestigious Italian museums to describe the exhibition “From Giotto to Morandi. Art treasures of Italian foundations and banks” which will be held until 15 September 2017 at Palazzo Baldeschi, a historic building owned by the Perugia foundation.
Promoted by the Cassa di Risparmio di Perugia Foundation and organized by the CariPerugia Arte Foundation, the exhibition is realized with the important contribution of Unicredit, the company that absorbed the Banca dell'Umbria, of which the Foundation held the property. Among the main Italian and European banking groups, Unicredit, together with the other two partners of the Augustum Opus SIM and Nextam Partners SIM SpA project, shared the idea of the Cassa di Risparmio di Perugia Foundation to donate part of the proceeds to the recovery interventions of the Umbrian historical and artistic heritage damaged by recent seismic events.
It is a large heritage which, due to the variety of its composition and its temporal stratification, can be considered the historical and cultural face of the various territories of our peninsula. This particular collecting activity is an aspect of the more comprehensive cultural commitment of the Banks and Foundations, in a broader dimension of activity and commitment towards the reference community: purchase, recovery, restoration and therefore protection and enhancement of works that would otherwise be dispersed . Most of the works on display are cataloged in Raccolte, the online database created by Acri, the Association of Foundations and Savings Banks which has granted its patronage, together with the Umbria Region and the Municipality of Perugia.
As stated by the President of the Cassa di Risparmio di Perugia Foundation Giampiero Bianconi: “The initiative takes on even more value as this year marks the 25th anniversary of the foundations of banking origin. We have always invested important resources for the enhancement of the cultural heritage of our territory and we are proud to be able to bring to our city some examples that testify how throughout the national territory Foundations and Banks have operated in this direction, making it possible to safeguard an artistic heritage of great value that deserves to be made available to the public”.
"A private heritage made available to the public in a non-private perspective, as an integration of a cultural activity that national public museums could not afford", adds the curator Vittorio Sgarbi.
The Perugian exhibition therefore proposes an enthralling journey along seven centuries of art history and at the same time will make it possible to verify the plurality of orientations that underlie the phenomenon of bank collecting. This precious widespread treasure - and in part still little known by the general public - will be told through 90 works, by Giotto, the artist who renewed painting, as well as Dante, his contemporary, who is considered the "Father" of the Italian language, to Giorgio Morandi who, guided by a supervised formal conscience, was able to infuse a calm and austere solemnity to simple everyday objects.
Between these two poles, the visitor will be able to admire the works of masters, more or less known, belonging to the main "schools" that make up the peculiar and complex "artistic geography" of our nation: Beato Angelico, Perugino, Pinturicchio, Matteo da Gualdo, Dosso Dossi, Ludovico Carracci, Giovanni Francesco Guerreri, Ferraù Fanzoni, Giovanni Lanfranco, Guercino, Guido Cagnacci, Pietro Novelli, Giovanni Domenico Cerrini, Mattia Preti, Luca Giordano, Antonio Balestra, Gaspar van Wittel, Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini, Bernardo Bellotto, Corrado Giaquinto , Pompeo Batoni, Angelica Kauffmann, Giovanni Fattori, Giuseppe De Nittis, Giovanni Boldini, Giuseppe Pelizza da Volpedo, Angelo Morbelli, Medardo Rosso, Leonardo Bistolfi, Carlo Carrà, Filippo de Pisis, Gerardo Dottori, to mention only the best known names. Understood in this way, the exhibition will account for the evolution of styles and will offer a broad overview of the subjects tackled by the artists, from the sacred theme to allegorical and mythological representations, from the genre of portrait to landscape and still life.
Cover painting: Bernardo Bellotto, Castelvecchio Bridge in Verona, oil on canvas, 84,50 x 137,50 cm, 1740. Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Verona Vicenza Belluno and Ancona
