The new website of the Longhi Foundation of Florence is online • Nove da Firenze
With a new graphic and clear site, the archive of Studies of Art History Roberto Longhi is pleased with an audience of enthusiasts and scholars the results of the work undertaken years ago on the archive of the Piedmontese art historian, who lived in Florence for many years, in the residence in via Fortini, the Tasso.
The site is a useful and updated tool, destined to grow and improve thanks to the resources made available by institutions and enlightened patrons, among which the contribution of Dianne Dwyer Modestini, art historian, restorer and teacher, was decisive in this case. which with its generous intervention made it possible to reorganize and digitize the document archive.
The papers that make up the archive document Roberto Longhi’s activity with a wealth of material. Of great interest is the rich collection of correspondence, with more than 12,000 letters, testifying to the intensity of the scholar’s conversation with many and different interlocutors: art historians, artists, writers, intellectuals.
The result of the recent work of reorganizing the papers is presented in the most classic form of the inventory and at the same time in the most dynamic form of the database: more agile in directing research and more immediate in suggesting the structure of the archival complex.
Through the database it is possible to directly access some specially digitized paper groups. These are the notes written by hand by Longhi during his travels around Europe, texts that were not known until recently, which accompany us through museums, monuments and private collections, rich in reflections, notes, and with drawings and sketches in pen.
Added to this are the texts of the art history lessons held in the universities of Rome, Bologna and Florence: some in handwritten version, or in the form of notes, others typed.
Soon the site will also host the archive of Lucia Lopreste, the writer better known as Anna Banti, who was the wife of Roberto Longhi and lived at the Tasso until her death in 1985, leaving her papers, the library and personal photographs there.
Roberto Longhi, born in Alba in 1890 and graduated in Turin with Pietro Toesca with a thesis on Caravaggio – an artist little known at the time -, lived until 1970, exercising the activity of art historian, critic and connoisseur. Teacher first in Rome and then in Bologna and Florence, he trained generations of students, imparting a wise lesson in philology, immersed in a profound study of the cultural context. Attentive observer and critic of contemporary art, he followed and curated periodic exhibitions such as the Venetian Biennial, the Roman Quadrennial, and was close to artists such as Giorgio Morandi, Carlo Carrà, Mino Maccari.
His activity as an art historian also extended to collaboration with the Ministry regarding problems related to the restoration of works of art, monuments and the care of the artistic heritage. An ante litteram popularizer, he wrote, in addition to essays in scientific journals – which he himself directed and founded – articles in newspapers and weeklies; he collaborated with directors such as Umberto Barbaro, in the creation of documentaries dedicated to artists (Caravaggio, Carpaccio, Carrà), recorded television broadcasts on the themes of art history.
www.fondazionelonghi.it