Marco Magnifico is the new FAI president, replacing the resigning Carandini

FAI - Fondo Ambiente Italiano has a new president: he is Marco Magnifico, former executive vice president of FAI from January 2010 to October 2021. FAI’s Board of Directors appointed him at yesterday’s meeting, following President Andrea Carandini ’s decision to resign. The Board of Directors thanked Professor Carandini for his commitment to FAI.

“I left my second term as president two years before it expired,” said Carandini, “thinking about the good of FAI. I dedicated my presidency to a reform of the Foundation so that it would emancipate itself from the circumstances of its beginnings, grow and mature, and thus be able to last over time as a stable institution of the Republic. The reform consisted of a strategic plan, to be completed in 2024, aimed at realizing the ’new dimension’, increased, of FAI: not only more protected, enhanced and managed properties - now 68, a good 20 more since 2013 - and more sustainable (for 85 percent of the charges) -, and a network of thousands of volunteers in now 350 garrisons across the country, but also a reinforcement of thecultural activity, refounded on scientific research applied to cultural enhancement and on a vision of FAI properties as parts and expressions of contexts, and of an ’environment’ reconsidered as an indissoluble interweaving of nature and history. But a reform is not complete if it does not facilitate moving forward: hence rejuvenation, starting with presidential rejuvenation. Today I leave FAI in the hands of the new president, Marco Magnifico, who will be the guarantor of an organized, solid, mature and effective structure in pursuit of the mission, in the tradition of the founders, but launched into the future.”

Andrea Carandini has served as president since Feb. 19, 2013. The presidency passes today to Marco Magnifico, who commented on his appointment as follows, “Withdrawn after 35 creative and wonderful years from all executive functions and grateful to the Board for the trust I assure today to the Foundation as its new President the fullness of my enthusiastic, deep and convinced dedication to the mission of FAI. In the furrow traced by the Founders and the three presidents who preceded me and alongside the operational structure and the Delegations in the territory, I commit myself to guide FAI in a growth and evolution that will increasingly root it as one of the primary realities of Italian civil society, born and raised with true social spirit to flank the institutions of the State in the care and enhancement of the ”environment“ of our country, understood as a wonderful and inseparable union of Nature and History.”

Born in Como on Oct. 29, 1954, Marco Magnifico graduated from the University of Pavia with a degree in Literature with a focus on Art History, and then specialized in Art History at the University of Florence, later winning a one-year scholarship at the Florentine Roberto Longhi Foundation. For nearly four years he worked as an expert on ancient paintings at the British auction house Sotheby’s, first at the London office, then in Italy. In 1985 he began his work at FAI. In January 2010 he was appointed Executive Vice-President, becoming responsible for cultural relations with the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of the Environment, institutions, private and public Italian and foreign associations, restoration and conservation of movable objects and collections owned by the Foundation, editorial activity and preliminary inquiries for acquisition proposals addressed to FAI. Today, after 35 years of experience always on the front line, he is witness to much of the history of the Fund for the Italian Environment. He has participated, as a member of the Scientific Committee, in numerous exhibitions of ancient art and edited their publications. In the early 1980s he edited some entries in the Catalogo Generale dei Dipinti della Pinacoteca di Brera, edited by Federico Zeri and published by Electa. In 2009 he was awarded the honor of Cavaliere al Merito della Repubblica. Since 2015 he has been a member of the Board of Directors of La Società del Quartetto. In 2017 he received the honor of Amis de la Vallée d’Aoste. Since 2017 he has been a member of the BoD of the SAME Foundation in Treviglio (BG). Since 2018 he has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Royal Museums of Turin, by appointment of Minister Dario Franceschini; the mandate was renewed in 2020.

In the photo: Andrea Carandini and Marco Magnifico

Marco Magnifico is the new FAI president, replacing the resigning Carandini

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