For the 30th anniversary of the Georgofili Massacre, the Uffizi revives a major exhibition

It was the night of May 26-27, 1993, when a Mafia bombing struck the heart of Florence, killing five innocent people (Fabrizio Nencioni, 39, his wife Angela Fiume, 31, their daughters Nadia, 9, and Caterina, 50 days old, and Dario Capolicchio, 22) and causing very serious damage to the Uffizi, both to the structure and to hundreds of works, some of which were irreparably compromised. Thirty years have passed since what has gone down in history as the Via dei Georgofili massacre, and it is precisely the Uffizi has decided, to mark the 30th anniversary, to symbolically bring back the same exhibition, consisting of 62 graphic works donated by dozens of international artists, that in 1995 bore the most vivid witness to the love of the whole world for Florence wounded by mafia violence. The exhibition, titled Risarcimento (Compensation), was strongly desired by the then director of the Gallery, Anna Maria Petrioli Tofani, who also today, together with Chiara Toti, is in charge of its rearrangement: Risarcimento will thus be on view again from May 23 to June 16 in specially inaugurated rooms on the ground floor of the museum, accompanied on the uffizi.it website by an online catalog that will illustrate and explore its contents.

It was in July 1993 that collector Giuliano Gori, at the suggestion of then-museum director Anna Maria Petrioli Tofani, initiated an ambitious campaign of donations of contemporary artworks to symbolically compensate the museum for the losses it had suffered through: the chosen field was graphic art.

Gori therefore created a Committee for the Uffizi in which experts in the field and prominent cultural figures entered: Jean Christophe Amman, Luciano Berio, Leo Castelli, Germano Celant, Maria Corral, Ida Giannelli, Thomas Krennz, Rita Levi Montalcini, Mario Luzi, Ida Panicelli, and Elda Pecci. They were polled among the most important artists of the time: 59 answered the call. A total of 81 works were donated: Kengiro Azuma, Piero Dorazio, Menashe Kadishman, Dani Karavan, Alex Katz, Luigi Mainolfi, Vettor Pisani, Alan Sonfist, and Ales Vesely each sent multiple drawings. The collection also included three important works by Joseph Beyus, Donald Judd, and Henry Moore, given to the museum by collectors Buby Durini and Lucrezia De Domizio Durini di Bolognano, Giuseppe Panza di Biumo, and Gori himself.

This nucleus of works, which arrived at the Uffizi between December 1993 and December 1994, went on to compose a heterogeneous and representative range in the contemporary scene. Some artists drew from their own production the ’papers’ that could most emotionally resonate with the dramatic event, others worked specifically for the occasion, as in the case of Robert Kushner, whose work was inspired precisely by Sebastiano del Piombo’s masterpiece, The Death of Adonis, which was severely damaged in the explosion.

In February 1995, therefore, the Uffizi organized a major exhibition to present the new collection. It was significantly chosen to set it up in the Sala delle Reali Poste, restored just after the bombing through a fundraiser promoted by a subscription of the readers of ’La Repubblica’. Sixty-two works were selected to be part of it, one for each artist: accompanying the exhibition was an important catalog published thanks to the generosity of the Olschki publishing house and edited, like the exhibition itself, by Stefania Gori.

“The investigations,” explained the director of the Uffizi, Eike D. Schmidt, “have revealed the war declared in those years by the Mafia against the State, striking a symbol like the Uffizi and killing people: this exhibition is also dedicated to them, to the destroyed Nencioni family, to the young student Capolicchio and to all those who were injured. And to the Uffizi, which while still showing signs of that disastrous attack, managed to rise again thanks to the support of so many actors in the institutions and among citizens. The director at the time, Annamaria Petrioli Tofani, had the spirit not only to direct the restoration work but also to think about the future, being able to count on a collector and citizen of exceptional sensitivity like Giuliano Gori. Remember and rebuild, in a momentum of resistance and hope that, as in any war, is the real weapon of victory: and with art, a memento and tangible sign that civilization is not erased by bombs.”

“Thirty years have passed, but the memories have lost none of their load of sensations, feelings, thoughts, anguish,” said director emerita Annamaria Petrioli Tofani. “They all come back - sharply - to the minds of those who, like me, experienced those episodes firsthand. It is our task today to make sure that the new generations also know and remember, if we want that such episodes should not happen again. We must therefore be grateful to Director Eike Schmidt who, with proven institutional sensitivity, re-proposes this exhibition, an indelible symbol of rebirth after tragedy, to today’s Uffizi public.”

“I do not believe in fairy tales,” declares Giuliano Gori, "but what happened on the occasion of Compensation could be read as an element of moral consolation in the face of a violent and hostile reality: sometimes, art has the strength to oppose evil. Unfortunately, several artists in the exhibition are no longer with us today; this is also an opportunity to remember them, to recall their affection for Florence and all that it represents for culture. Can art make reparations? I don’t know, certainly it can help keep hope for a better world alive."

For the 30th anniversary of the Georgofili Massacre, the Uffizi revives a major exhibition

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