This issue is almost wholly dedicated to Ferrara as “Renaissance city”, a theme which has united a series of ideas and successful projects connected to the Renaissance character of Ferrara: exhibitions, books, conferences and restorations. In this regard, the article by Angelo Andreotti stands out: he covers the return of the Temple of San Cristoforo to the city, an example of how restoration projects can…

Some observations on the Temple of San Cristoforo alla Certosa after its restoration. Entering the Temple of San Cristoforo alla Certosa the first impact comes from the architecture, intended in its most precise sense as the place to occupy, to explore with one’s gaze and one’s body. A unique nave lies ahead of us, while there behind extends the depth of the apse just interrupted…

Michelangelo Antonioni’s great lessons in cinema. Little more than a month after his death, the 64th International Film Festival in Venice paid homage to Michelangelo Antonioni, with a pre-scheduled tribute. In fact the decision to award him the Award for Creativity had already been taken some months before, with the following citation: “for a great artist who brought Italian cinema to the world with originality…

A great painting rediscovered: an image of the dreams and anxieties of the post-war generation. Thinking back to the months which followed the bright days of April 1945 is to recall how difficult it was, after so many months of living precariously, to find a mental order which could be easily described. We created a newspaper, ‘Incontro’, which proudly sought to discuss politics, art and…

Adamo Boari, between Renaissance classicism and twentieth century unrest. Adamo Boari was born in Ferrara and graduated from Bologna university at twenty three, with a degree in Engineering. With his studies finished, he embarked on a brilliant career which would take him, in the space of a very few years, from Italy to Brazil, then to the United States and ultimately to Mexico, where he…

Art in Ferrara in the age of Borso d’Este: the story of an exhibition. When, some three years ago, the Mayor of Ferrara asked me to organise an exhibition on a theme which would connect with the project “Ferrara: City of the Renaissance”, I remember feeling both a great enthusiasm born from my long-term passion for historical art in general and particularly Ferrarese art, and…

Portrait of a court gentleman and his family. The exhibition Cosmè Turo e Francesco del Cossa. L’arte a ferrara nell’età di Borso offers food for thought in the singularity of all the works it features. The Book of Hours which is known by the names of the couple who commissioned it – Andrea Gualenghi and Orsina d’Este – enables us to meet one of the…

The splendours of the Villa Mensa, rich in history and memories, are being revived. Built in the Copparo area close to Sabbioncello San Vittore, sheltered on the left bank of the Po di Volano, the great Episcopal Palace of Ferrara still displays its majesty even today after over five hundred years of history. The palace is still standing largely thanks to its location on one…

The fascinating and multifaceted figure of Dante Bighi: designer, traveller, artist, collector, photographer. Anyone who today sets out to profile Dante Bighi - over thirteen years after his death – cannot attempt to approach his works, his career, his personality without fully and explicitly considering the multiplicity of his interests, all profoundly linked together, and developed by him with equal talent and profundity. Without any…

Giovanni Grosoli, founder of the Italian National Centre (1924-1930). On 12 August 1924, seeing in fascism an opportunity for a religious revival in Italy and a retreat from social disorder, the Senator Giovanni Grosoli founded the Italian National Centre, the CNI, in Bologna. Fascism appeared to him as a broadly acceptable solution. He was also against the policy of opposition to fascism of the Partito…

Irina Artemieva and Francesca Cappelletti are hoping to make Ferrara a great workshop of art, research and restoration linking Russia and Italy. “An Academy in Italy? It is a dream which is finally being realised. A place dedicated to culture and research, where scholars and experts from our two countries can work together, deepening their respective knowledge.” In her brand new office on the piano…

A gift of poetry to Ferrara’s readers from a youthful nonagenarian. As his friends know all too well, Gaetano Tumiati, a journalist and writer born in Ferrara, but resident for sixty years in Milan, likes to boast not of his journalistic and literary fame but of the long walks he still takes, despite his great age, in the hills around Piacenza, near his second home…

An original cultural design with a strategically important future. Since 1753, Palazzo Paradiso and its Library have been well known as an essential point of reference for the city, representing its distinctive cultural tradition: between the Renaissance and the twentieth century, through Ariosto and Tasso, from Monti to Govoni, the collections of the Ariostea Library are an allegory for literary Ferrara. Today a new element…

We live our lives in pleasure, or write them in suffering. /My harsh fate has been to suffer my life, while living and writing it It is almost impossible to sum up the archive of Corrado Govoni in a single term. It is an evocative “literary workshop”: an archive of ideas, hopes, affections, where cross-sections of life, memories, reflections, linguistic experiments and literary criticism all…

Gabriele Corbo, publisher, connoisseur, aesthete and collector. Born in Ferrara on 29 April 1927 into a family of established traders, Gabriele Corbo early took on a management role in a textile firm in Padua. At the same time, he entered the world of art and culture, which had always fascinated him, not just for the pleasure of conversation but for the opportunities it provide to…

Un'attività che non si ferma ai confini della provincia, consapevole di dover essere presente dove c'è bisogno   L'11 luglio 2007 è stato un giorno di gioia e di coesione per Nìlaveli, piccolo villaggio rurale nel Nord Est dello Sri Lanka, devastato dalla forza distruttiva ed annichilente dello tsunami del Natale di tre anni fa. A questa giornata importante ho avuto l'onore di partecipare, condividendo…

L'attività di recupero di opere ferraresi disperse prosegue con l'acquisizione di due importanti dipinti.   Il 29 maggio scorso la Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Ferrara ha partecipato, nella persona del Vicepresidente Piero Puglioli, ad un'asta di dipinti antichi presso la sede milanese di Sotheby's, aggiudicandosi due dipinti di una certa rilevanza nel recupero del patrimonio storico-artistico della nostra città. Da sempre la Fondazione si…

Il Presidente della Repubblica, Giorgio Napolitano, incontra le categorie economiche ferraresi nella sede della Cassa. In occasione della sua visita alla città di Ferrara, il 20 ottobre 2007 il Presidente della Repubblica Giorgio Napolitano ha voluto rispettare quella che è ormai diventata una tradizione per la nostra città, presenziando presso la Cassa di Risparmio di Ferrara una cerimonia cara al suo predecessore Carlo Azeglio Ciampi…