Some Giuseppe Verdi documents declared to be of public utility

The General Directorate of Archives of MiBAC has adopted the decree declaring the archival compendium consisting of theGiuseppe Verdi Epistolary, theClarina Maffei Album and the unpublished Giuseppe Verdi Musical Sketches to be of public utility for the purpose of expropriation.

“Valuable cultural assets such as these deserve to be valued not on the basis of mere commodity value, but as unique and necessary objects of our cultural heritage. The Italian genius of Giuseppe Verdi and his works cannot have a quantifiable value; they are important fragments of our country’s history and should be treated as such. And we have the duty to protect these objects, to ensure their preservation and proper enjoyment,” said Minister of Cultural Heritage Alberto Bonisoli.

TheEpistolario consists of 54 envelopes of correspondence, to which are added the lettercopies of Giuseppe Verdi and Giuseppina Strepponi, consisting of ten bound volumes containing minute letters from the Maestro and his wife, as well as a notebook containing a history of the popes written by Verdi but left unfinished. TheAlbum Clarina Maffei consists of a collection of 179 documents, mostly autographs, of prominent international cultural figures, begun by Clarina Maffei - patriot and animator of a celebrated salon in mid-nineteenth-century Milan - and given by her to Verdi, who continued it. Finally, the core of autographs called Giuseppe Verdi’s unpublished Abbozzi musicali includes preparatory versions, sketches and skeleton scores of 16 celebrated Verdi compositions, including Rigoletto, La traviata and Aida.
The documentation is currently at theState Archives in Parma, under compulsory custody.

The action of the archival administration has taken off in recent years from the need to ensure the security, proper preservation and, above all, public enjoyment of the precious documentation, a tangible expression, vehicle and memory of Verdi’s intellectual and creative experience.

The transfer of Verdi’s documentation to state ownership will allow the development of indispensable interventions aimed at the restoration,sorting andinventorying of the papers as well as an articulated cultural project to be carried out through digitization accessible online, exhibitions and conferences.

Some Giuseppe Verdi documents declared to be of public utility

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