Foreword

Written by  Alfredo Santini
In a symbolic sense, this number brings the millennium to a close. On this occasion, our idea at the Fondazione Cassa di Rispannio di Ferrara was to mark one of the foremost aspects of our activities: that of maintaining firm roots in the area. By this I mean not only working for the development of Ferrara, but also emphasizing the importance of those local people whose work has brought honour upon the city.


Such as Guido Fink, illustrious expert on the history of the cinema and now director of the Italian Cultural Institute in Los Angeles, who was asked to commemorate Luchino Visconti and the film that made the landscape of Ferrara famous: Obsession. The genius of Visconti translated the charm and the evocative atmosphere of contemporary Ferrara and spread them throughout the world: the city's thanks to Visconti are therefore couched in the words of Guido Fink, a fellow citizen who has become a citizen of the world.

This year, a prestigious and fascinating exhibition held in Milan's Palazzo Reale has finally revealed the European dimension of the art of Gaetano Previati, a Ferrarese painter who has definitively left the ranks of worthy but provincial painters to earn himself an important place in the panorama of European Symbolism. Gianni Venturi discusses the art of Previati and the subtle relationships between the most innovative ferments of symbolist literature and painting that it contains.

We are again reminded of the international importance of Ferrarese culture by Jadranka Bentini's essay on El Greco and by Monica Molteni's piece on Cosmé Tura (to whom the Cassa has dedicated a sumptuous volume). And, to mark the love borne by Ferrara's citizens for their own history, there is Ranieri Varese's piece on tombstones, as well as an article on the restoration of the frescoes in the church of Saint Maria di Savonuzzo. An issue, in short, devoted mostly to art, so that we may bid farewell to the century with the most precious inheritance that Ferrara has bequeathed us: its art and its culture.