Florence, an exhibition at Villa Bardini on Roberto Longhi and Anna Banti at the center of a lively intellectual exchange

Villa Bardini in Florence is hosting from March 27 to July 2025 the exhibition Caravaggio and the Twentieth Century. Roberto Longhi, Anna Banti, curated by Cristina Acidini and Claudio Paolini, promoted by the Fondazione CR Firenze in collaboration with the Fondazione di Studi di Storia dell’Arte Roberto Longhi.

The protagonists are Roberto Longhi and Anna Banti, who were at the center of a cultural circle that saw them as points of reference. Artists and intellectuals gathered around them, giving rise to a lively intellectual exchange that transcended disciplinary boundaries. Both of them, starting from their respective fields of expertise, succeeded in re-evaluating a century hitherto little considered by art history, the seventeenth century: Anna Banti rediscovered the figure of Artemisia Gentileschi, while Longhi helped bring the work of Caravaggio back to the forefront.

The exhibition brings together masterpieces such as Caravaggio’s Ragazzo morso da un ramarro (Boy Bitten by a Lizard ), Jusepe de Ribera’s Apostles, and an evocative series of ten paintings by Morandi, made by the Bolognese artist and donated over time, on different occasions, to Roberto Longhi and his wife Anna Banti. Altogether, the exhibition presents more than forty works including paintings, drawings, watercolors, as well as a nucleus of original photographs and archival documents, which testify to the couple’s frequentation of Ungaretti, Bassani, Pratolini, Gadda, Pea, Bigongiari and Pasolini, as well as artists of the caliber of de Pisis, Socrates, Guttuso, Mafai and Morandi.

The exhibition is divided into twelve sections, each of which explores Longhi and Banti’s close relationships with key figures of the 20th century. The first section introduces the two protagonists through paintings and photographs, followed by a section devoted to Roberto Longhi the collector, in which the work of Caravaggio stands out alongside various Caravaggesque paintings. Other sections delve into Longhi’s relationship with cinema and his activity as a lecturer.

Anna Banti, on the other hand, is recounted as an art historian, writer and translator, through a selection of numerous drawings that Longhi dedicated to her and a collection of photographs depicting her at her residence at Villa Il Tasso. An entire section focuses on her bond with Giorgio Morandi: the two, both born in 1890, met in Bologna and established a lasting friendship. Longhi immediately recognized Morandi’s talent, calling him “one of the greatest living Italian painters” in his inaugural address as professor of Art History at the University of Bologna. Testimony to this association are the numerous works of the painter still preserved at Villa Il Tasso.

The last part of the exhibition focuses on the couple’s summer frequentations and the works that marked these periods, such as Carrà’s marine paintings and the family portraits made by Leonetta Cecchi Pieraccini. The exhibition also includes a Silent Room, a space designed to offer visitors a moment of pause.

The exhibition is a collaboration between the Fondazione CR Firenze and the Fondazione Roberto Longhi, with the intention of celebrating the importance of Longhi and Banti in twentieth-century culture and highlighting their network of relationships with the greatest artistic and literary figures of the time.

“This is an amazing exhibition,” said Cristina Acidini, president of the Roberto Longhi Foundation for the Study of Art History. “Visitors to Villa Bardini are presented with a pair of exceptional characters: Longhi and Banti, who from the hills of Oltrarno influenced and to some extent directed the artistic and cultural life of the Italian twentieth century.”

Hours: Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Closed Mondays.
Tickets: Full 10 euros; reduced 5 euros for groups of more than 10 people, EU youth aged 18 to 24, Italian Touring Club members, FAI, Unicoop members, full-ticket holders of the Boboli-Bardini Gardens. Free for children up to 17 years old, disabled people and their companions, journalists, tour guides, Firenze Card holders; school classes including two teachers with reservation at Firenze Musei call center 055 2989816.
Beginning in May, guided tours of the Roberto Longhi Foundation’s headquarters and non-exhibited works at Villa Il Tasso in Florence for those with exhibition tickets. For information see fondazionelonghi.it.

Florence, an exhibition at Villa Bardini on Roberto Longhi and Anna Banti at the center of a lively intellectual exchange

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