Bologna, Federico Zeri's archive donated to foundation named after him

The great art historian Federico Zeri was born in Rome exactly 100 years ago, on August 12, 1921: and on the occasion of the Anno Zeri event, held this Thursday to celebrate the very centenary of the birth of the scholar who left theUniversity of Bologna his photo library and library ofart library (along with his villa in Mentana, near Rome, and epigraph collection), the art historian’s grandson and heir, Eugenio Malgeri Zeri, announced the donation of Federico Zeri’s personal Archive to the Foundation named after him.

The Archive consists of several thousand letters sent to the scholar from the 1940s to 1998, the year of his death. Among the best-known correspondents: Frederick Antal, Alberto Arbasino, Francesco Arcangeli, Bernard Berenson, Carlo Bertelli, Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Vittore Branca, Giuliano Briganti, Maurizio Calvesi, Enzo Carli, Raffaello Causa, Pico Cellini, Vittorio Cini, Angelo Costa, Paola Della Pergola, Maurizio Fagiolo, Everett Fahy, Giuseppe Fiocco, Carlo Fruttero, Alvar Gonzàles-Palacios, Mina Gregori, Hugh Honour, Michel Laclotte, Amedeo Lia, Roberto Longhi, Franco Lucentini, Denis Mahon, Mario Modestini, Francesco Molinari Pradelli, Benedict Nicolson, Richard Offner, Elvina Pallavicini, Carlo Pietrangeli, John Pope-Hennessy, Mario Praz, Teresa Pugliatti, Olga Raggio, Pierre Rosenberg, Pasquale Rotondi, Franco Russoli, Alberto Saibene, Mario Salmi, Evelin Sandberg Vavalà, Mario Scaglia, Salvatore Settis, Rodolfo Siviero, Nicola Spinosa, Pietro Toesca, Bruno Toscano, Luisa Vertova, Carlo Volpe, Paolo Volponi, Fernanda Wittgens, Rudolf Wittkower, and Pietro Zampetti.

It is therefore a collection of documents of great value, which is currently being reorganized, and which will be reunited with the precious photo library and art library, donated by Zeri to the University of Bologna in 1998, returning to the scientific community a unique and unified heritage. It is also a double gift, as the Archives will also be delivered in digital format, with the documents fully scanned according to parameters agreed upon with the Fondazione Zeri’s technicians. To honor this important donation, on the occasion of Federico Zeri’s centennial, a one-year Research Grant is also being announced by the Federico Zeri Foundation, to which the Accademia Carrara of Bergamo is also contributing, to support research aimed at investigating the figure of Federico Zeri and his work as a scholar. Particular attention will be paid to the establishment of his extraordinary art photo library, his formative years, his frequentations with Roberto Longhi and Bernard Berenson, and his experience in the Fine Arts Administration. The scholar’s relationships with museums and major collectors, in Italy and the United States, from which fundamental catalogs have resulted, will be explored.

During the event, the birth of the Friends of Federico Zeri Association, which will collaborate with the Foundation in the development and support of new projects, was also announced, while the Foundation’s director, Andrea Bacchi, presented the program of initiatives promoted by the National Committee for the Celebrations of the Centenary of Federico Zeri’s Birth in which the Carrara Academy, the Poldi Pezzoli Museum and the Vatican Museums, three prestigious museum institutions linked to Zeri’s name, are participating. The photographic archive has been enriched over the years with illustrious donations until it has become a true repository of reference in Italy for the archives of art historians: last in order of arrival is the photo library of Anna Ottani Cavina (first director and honorary president of the Fondazione Zeri) whose cataloguing will soon begin, and that of the scholar Alvar Gonzales-Pàlacios is on its way from Rome. From the 290,000 photographs of the Zeri bequest today, the Foundation’s holdings have grown to 435,000 photographs.

The goal of the Zeri Foundation will be to make available the scholar’s Archives, which will complement the documentation of the photo library and library by opening up new research perspectives. The first unpublished correspondence, Federico Zeri-Roberto Longhi. Letters (1946-1965), edited by Mauro Natale, and published by SilvanaEditoriale. The correspondence exchanged between Federico Zeri and Roberto Longhi covers about two decades of the two scholars’ lives (1946-1965) almost without discontinuity and includes 349 letters. The collection allows us to uncover the compelling story of the relationship between the two leading Italian art historians of the 20th century, tracing it from its beginnings: from the young Zeri’s enthusiastic and irrepressible testimonies to the mature master, to Longhi’s discovery of the prodigious ingenuity of the fledgling art historian, to whom he dedicates an unsuspected and affectionate availability. The tone of the letters, having overcome the initial mistrust, becomes over time more and more confidential, so much so that the correspondence constitutes, in the years when the exchange is most intense (1946-1955), a sort of diary in which personal difficulties and disappointments, discoveries and exhilarating experiences, lost battles and early successes are recorded.

At the same time as the donation of the Archives, his nephew Eugenio Malgeri Zeri and the University of Bologna donated to the Carrara Academy of Bergamo 10 16th-century carved marble pilasters that adorned the library of the Villa di Mentana, property of the Bolognese Athenaeum. A choice that confirms the link between Federico Zeri and the prestigious Bergamo institution to which the scholar had donated 46 modern-age sculptures from his collection in 1998. A relationship, therefore, that has not yet broken, and that began in the 1950s when Zeri used to visit Carrara, which he loved for the quality and richness of its collections.

The museum, since 2015, has earmarked an entire room specifically to house the Zeri bequest, to which will be added the marble pilasters that can be enjoyed by the public along with the rest of the collection. The sculptures of the Zeri bequest, although they have been the subject of study on several occasions, will be the subject of a new and in-depth investigation that has led to unpublished results and new attributions and will result in the publication of a catalog.

Bologna, Federico Zeri's archive donated to foundation named after him

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