Foreword

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 07:45:32 +0000
Num. 7

This magazine was created to serve as both a promotional and cultural vehicle. Our original objective was to «spread the image of a city that has not lost the sense of a glorious past, a past that lives on in an industrious and intellectually efficacious present».
Faced with events such as the recent earthquake, which as well as serious human problems has posed knotty questions concerning art conservation and art itself, we felt we ought to search our conscience with regard to our activities. This involved determining whether we have effectively taken the right road, carried out the tasks we had set ourselves, and conveyed a sense of our presence to our fellow citizens.

Such an assessment is even more opportune today, on the eve of the new law that will make important changes in the status of foundations like ours. For these reasons, we have devoted a large part of the magazine to a kind of balance sheet of our activities.
At the same time, with a view to ensuring that promotion and culture continue to coexist in harmony, we have presented a "shop window" displaying the products of a city that was and is a capital of culture. We start off with an account of the events of 1598, when Cesare d'Este left for Modena and Pope Clement VIII arrived in Ferrara, and we continue with a series of pieces about notable personalities from our area: Vittorio Cini, one of the great Ferraresi of the last century; Professor Laderchi, the ideologue of the neo Guelph movement; Pietro Niccolini and the prize for literature, history and art named after him.

But, with an eye to the economic and social aspects of Ferrara today, we also deal with the history of the co-operative movement and the development of pleasure boating on the Po. A rather different number this time, then, but one that keeps faith with our original goal: to present and promote an image of Ferrara worth conveying to the wider world beyond the city.