The value of remembrance, the survival, in the memories of those who remain, of those who have left us, is a key element in any community. With the demise of so many illustrious personalities who have added lustre to Ferrara's name, we thought it an act of due love and respect to commemorate them. Bassani, Rossi, Zevi, Carletti. and Collevati are celebrated here for their…

The imagination of the landscape artist Giuseppe Zola, a leading light of 17th century Ferrarese figurative art, was both fertile and inventive. In 1971, Palazzo dei Diamanti was the venue for an exhibition organized by Eugenio Riccomini in which sixty brilliantly restored paintings introduced the public to works and artists that were all but unknown, including Giuseppe Zola, present with twenty large canvases.

Pawnshops and Jewish families in Ferrara and in the Este politics. Pawnshops: an expression that arouses hostility and suspicion. Feelings that arise from the Christian concept about loans against pledges, a concept that determines a relationship differing from that holding in other cultures with regard to this system of credit. In 1434, a certain Bonaventura, along with Salamon Zudie, son of Manuele Norsa, ran a…

Recollections of Giorgio Bassani (and of Bruno Lattes). For reasons beyond my control, I was unable to attend Giorgio Bassani's funeral in the Jewish cemetery in Ferrara: the cemetery that in Gli occhiali d'oro gives the narrator a sense of "great sweetness, AND the dearest peace AND gratitude". Of course, it is Bassani the man, alive, that we ought to be commemorating at this time.…

Giorgio Bassani and the mark of a diversity. Roland Barthes said that we write to be loved and we are read without this being possible. Now that Giorgio Bassani has gone, this strikes me as apter than ever. For the characteristic that underpinned his profoundest inspiration sprang from the mark of a diversity that was carved into the flesh, insofar as he was a Jew,…

Of Bassani, Ferrara and art. I did not meet Giorgio Bassani in Ferrara but in Florence. It was in the Seventies; we had all just emerged from the student protest movement, of which Florence had been one of the centres. Yet that gentleman with the cornflower-blue eyes and the upper middle class air knew that even tragedy could be evoked in the calm serenity of…

Some hypotheses regarding the inscription on the façade of the house in via Mirasole. Ariosto was forever in search of peace. This sublime poet of the imagination was obliged by life to deal with irritating realities: trials, pettifogging lawyers, the division of property among family members, relations with the court. All things he was forced to do in order to make ends meet.

Giuseppe Compagnoni: an extraordinary patriot, now forgotten.On 7 January 1797, ten days after the proclamation of the Cispadane Republic, the Congress of one hundred representatives of the cities of Bologna, Ferrara, Modena, and Reggio adopted as their flag the white, red and green. The man who submitted the idea of the tricolour to the revolutionaries was Giuseppe Compagnoni, born in Lugo on 3 March 1754,…

The historic home of anatomical studies, Ferrara is one of the Italian cities that boast a theme museum. For over two centuries the Giovanni Tumiati anatomical museum has been a cultural centre of major historic, scientific, and educational importance. Ferrara is in fact among the ten Italian cities that, since 1600, have been historic centres of anatomical research with museums devoted specifically to this field.…

A rare and valuable 19th century work has been returned to the public. This year's international Salone dell'Arte e della Conservazione dei Beni Culturali e Ambientali, the important specialist art event held in Ferrara, featured an outstandingly unusual and beautiful Veduta of Venice by Giovanni Biasin, a tempera painting on a roll of paper twenty-metres in length and one metre seventy in height displayed on…

Surroundings, atmospheres and personalities connected with the renowned Ariosto event live again in the recollections of a small boy. Some months ago, one sunny afternoon in Ferrara, I took corso Porta Mare as far as Parco Massari. Once there, I stood gazing at it from the outside. A far different sight to when I was a boy. In those days the park belonged to the…

A new volume from the Fondazione, devoted to art collecting in the city between 19th and 20th centuries. The series on art collecting in Ferrara, launched by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Ferrara, now boasts a new title: Antichi e moderni. Quadri e collezionisti ferraresi del XX secolo. Edited by me, with the help of Antonio P. Torresi, the book begins with a preface…

Giovan Battista Aleotti, a great intellectual of the Ferrarese Renaissance. Aleotti was born into a wealthy family in Argenta in 1546. Our knowledge of him is vague and patchy. But his technical skills and the immense culture he acquired and demonstrated point to a complete and methodical apprenticeship that was probably rounded off with a degree. In 1575 Aleotti was on the payroll as engineer-architect…

Between realism and transfiguration, the image of Ferrara in the short stories and novels by Gian Franco Rossi. "When reality outstrips the imagination, WHEN events tell their own story... THEN the writer must be their photographer, even if this means transforming himself INTO a cold reporter." So says Gian Franco Rossi in the short story L'intermediario, from 1987. The will to become the photographer of…

The first Renaissance town plan sprang from a blend of strategy, philosophy and the old town plan. Some years ago, I made the documentary Ferrara prima città moderna: through scenes from life and prints, the film illustrated the fundamental characteristics of the Addizione, the extensions to the city ordered by Duke Ercole. In order to make the film I first had to solve various preliminary…

A tribute to Bruno Zevi, a fundamental presence in the contemporary debate on the arts and architecture. My tribute to Bruno Zevi follows three moments in his career, trying to grasp his moral strength and his inimitable capacity to be at the centre of the contemporary debate on the arts and architecture. First moment. Verso un'architettura organica, 1945, is the text with which Bruno Zevi…

"FOR me Biagio Rossetti IS LIKE a father, a brother, a colleague, a friend." A phone call in the late autumn of last year. One of Bruno Zevi's many brilliant, intriguing calls. This magazine had asked him to write an article upon the conclusion of the restoration of the walls of Ferrara and he had accepted with enthusiasm. As a citizen of Ferrara who held…

Con Silvio Carletti, presidente della Fondazione, scompare un punto di riferimento della vita economica e politica della città. Il terribile male, diagnosticato soltanto pochi mesi prima, l'ha avuta vinta su Silvio Carletti il 15 febbraio 2000. Aveva da poco accettato di assecondare "i suoi molestatori" e di piegarsi alle terapie mediche nonostante l'irriducibile convinzione della loro vanità, quando la realtà gli ha dato purtroppo ragione. Lacerata…

Con Raffaello Collevati scompare una figura di amministratore di grande spessore umano e civile. Questi giorni di aprile sono giorni di lutto, perché sono scomparsi personaggi illustri che appartengono alla storia della città, ma, prima ancora, ai sentimenti, agli affetti, alle relazioni spirituali, culturali della comunità ferrarese. Una comunità che, come ogni altra, scrive pagine di progresso e di crescita civile con le opere, le…

Come ogni anno, le Fondazioni riunite a Ferrara per il Salone Internazionale dell'Arte del Restauro. Dal 24 al 27 marzo, il quartiere fieristico di Ferrara ha ospitato la settima edizione del Salone Internazionale dell'Arte del Restauro e della Conservazione dei Beni Culturali e Ambientali, un appuntamento importante e atteso nel mondo del restauro. Privati, imprenditori, osservatori, enti pubblici, fondazioni bancarie, banche e casse di risparmio,…

I piani di sviluppo della Cassa: nuovi strumenti per una presenza più efficace. La Cassa di Risparmio di Ferrara gode di ottima salute, beneficia di una significativa e crescente redditività e mantiene una consolidata quota di mercato sulla sua tradizionale area di operatività. I dati del 1999 dimostrano una crescita più che soddisfacente.La raccolta diretta ha presentato un dato finale di 2.750 miliardi di lire, con una…

Davvero cari non saprei dirvelo attraverso quali strade così di lontano io sia riuscito dopo talmente tanto tempo a tornareVi dirò soltanto che mi lasciaipilotare nel buioda qualcheduno che m'avevapreso in silenzio per lamano

Ferrara. Voci di una cittàRivista semestrale di cultura, informazione e attualitàAnno 6, numero 12 - Giugno 2000Registrata presso il Tribunale di Ferrara il 9 novembre 1994 con il numero 13/94. ISSN 1128-3572Spedizione in abbonamento postale e. 20/c, art. 2, l. 662/96Edizione fuori commercio, riservata ai soci e agli amici dellaFondazione Cassa di Risparmio di FerraraComitato EditorialeFrancesca Bargellesi, Luciano Chiappini, Vittorio Emiliani, Giorgio Franceschini, Roberto Pazzi,…