Longhi Foundation of Florence launches new website

The Longhi Foundation of Florence presents its new website, www.fondazionelonghi.it, redesigned under the banner of clarity and graphic elegance. In this way, the Fondazione di Studi di Storia dell’Arte Roberto Longhi shares with enthusiasts and scholars the results of the work undertaken three years ago on the archives of the Piedmontese art historian, who lived in Florence many years in Tasso’s home on Via Fortini. The website stands as a useful and up-to-date tool, destined to grow and improve thanks to the resources made available by institutions and enlightened patrons, among whom the contribution of Dianne Dwyer Modestini, art historian, restorer and lecturer, whose generous intervention made possible the reorganization and digitization of the documentary archive, proved decisive in this case.

The papers that make up the archive document Roberto Longhi’s activity with a wealth of material. Of great interest then is the rich collection of correspondence, with more than 12,000 letters, testifying to the intensity of the scholar’s conversations with many different interlocutors: art historians, artists, men of letters, and intellectuals.

The fruit of the recent work of rearranging the papers is presented in the more classical form of the inventory and at the same time in the more dynamic form of the database: more agile in directing the search and more immediate in suggesting the structure of the archival complex. Through the database it is possible to directly access some groups of specially digitized paper records. These are Longhi’s handwritten notes during his travels around Europe, hitherto little-known texts that accompany the reader through museums, monuments and private collections, rich in reflections, notes, and with pen drawings and sketches. Added to this are texts from art history lectures given at the universities of Rome, Bologna and Florence: some in manuscript version, or in the form of notes, others typed.

Soon the site will also welcome the archive of Lucia Lopresti, the writer better known as Anna Banti, who was Roberto Longhi’s wife and lived at the Tasso until her death in 1985, leaving there her own papers, library, and personal photographs.

Roberto Longhi, who was born in Alba in 1890 and graduated from Turin with Pietro Toesca with a thesis on Caravaggio-a then little-known artist-lived until 1970, practicing as an art historian, critic and connoisseur. A lecturer first in Rome and then in Bologna and Florence, he trained generations of students, imparting a masterly lesson in philology, dropped into a profound study of the cultural context. A keen observer and critic of contemporary art, he followed and curated periodic exhibitions such as the Venetian Biennales, the Roman Quadriennales, and was close to artists such as Giorgio Morandi, Carlo Carrà, and Mino Maccari. His activities as an art historian also extended to working with the Ministry on problems related to the restoration of works of art, monuments, and the care of the artistic heritage. An ante litteram divulger, he wrote, in addition to essays in scientific journals-which he himself directed and founded-articles in newspapers and weekly magazines; he collaborated with directors such as Umberto Barbaro, in the production of documentaries dedicated to artists (Caravaggio, Carpaccio, Carrà), recorded television broadcasts on art history topics.

In the photo: Roberto Longhi

Longhi Foundation of Florence launches new website

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