Book&Art: Italy and its vended art – scattered collections, lost masterpieces
What do the “Portrait of the Doge Leonardo Loredan” painted by Giovanni Bellini, the “Portrait of the Doge Andrea Gritti” by Tiziano Vecellio and the “Portrait of Bindo Altoviti” by Raffaello Sanzio all have in common?
Actually many things: they are all portraits depicting influential people of the Italian scene at the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, immortalised by three famous painters.
The sore point is that they are no longer found on Italian soil: in fact, Bellini's painting is housed at the National Gallery in London, whereas it is possible to admire the works of Titian and Raphael at the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
The diaspora of artworks, which initiated with the beginning of collecting that developed in Venice in the 15th century, is a phenomenon that afflicts not only Italy (which, however, hosts one of the largest collection areas), but the whole world.
- The journalist and writer Alvise Zorzi (1922 - 2016) counted over 25,000 Venetian paintings "scattered to the four winds" under Napoleon’s reign, and the loss of "thousands of sculptures mostly destroyed and gold and silver mostly melted and swallowed in ingots by the treasury of Monte Napoleone in Milan."
- The archaeologist Antonio Giuliano (1930) reports that "the Eternal City has lost the major part of the sculptures [...] that still existed at the end of the eighteenth century: [...] Johann Joachim Winckelmann lived in Rome, content among its 50,000 statues. However, it is said that there were 75,000 of them. Today there are about 7,000 left, of which 3,000 are in the Vatican."
- The archaeologist Irene Favaretto denounces that only 7% of the antiquities accumulated in the golden centuries remain in Venice; the rest was either sold abroad or destroyed. I could go on indefinitely.
I had the opportunity to participate in the presentation lead by the author on the 21st of June 2017, in the golden frame of the Sala della Fortuna of the Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia in Rome. Isman accuses Italy of irrepressibly unhanding artworks of inestimable value.
With this book, Fabio Isman wishes to raise awareness when it comes to the looting that our Peninsula has experienced for over six centuries.
It is a book that surges indignation and disappointment amongst art lovers but I am convinced that awareness is one powerful weapon that will help fight this phenomenon.
PS: inside the book you will find a link and a QR code, that you can access by your smartphone, tablet or PC, and that leads you to the approximately 300 works that Isman mentions. So what are you waiting for?
F. Isman, L’Italia dell’arte Venduta. Collezioni disperse, capolavori fuggiti, Collana Intersezioni, Editore Il Mulino, 2017: https://www.mulino.it/isbn/9788815270412
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