Foreword

Written by  Alfredo Santini
The "voices" evoked in the magazine's masthead intertwine and complement each other, not only in what is present but also in what is to come. The "voices" of the Foundation and the Cassa document the efforts to protect the economic and cultural heritage, and confirm the desire for expansion while focusing on the objectives of security and stability.

There are "voices" which evoke the Ferrara of the 1930s: the painter Mimì Quilici Buzzacchi, the planning project at Tresigallo, Italo Balbo's transatlantic flight, the unforgettable exhibition of 1933. The "voice" speaking about today's city is that of Stefano Lolli, talking about the Parco Bassani and the future National Shoah Museum.

The question of restoration, an issue of considerable importance in the Foundation's cultural policy, is tackled by Costanza Cavicchi's piece on the church of St Simon and St Jude, and by Berenice Giovannucci Vigi's on the Esther canvases. Two interesting items on Jewish merchants in Ferrara in the sixteenth century, and on a document recording the presence of the Tura in the Monastery of Saint Paul complete the section on renaissance history, just as the piece on two hundred years of the Circolo Unione and an article on poetry in the Copparo dialect give voice to the recent history of the city.

The voice of Gianni Venturi, in his article on the exhibition Une Renaissance singulière - la cour des Este a Ferrare opened in Brussels by President Ciampi and the Belgian royal family with substantial support from the Cassa and the Foundation, lies between past and future. As in 1933, the lights of Ferrara's Renaissance will shine brightly in the setting of the newly restored Castello: from March to June 2004, the "voices" of Europe art will converge on Ferrara and its priceless treasures, restored at last to the place where the collection was born and first admired by the courts and peoples of Europe.