- The National Gallery of Puglia, one of the richest museums in the region, was founded thanks to the donation of two brothers collectors, Girolamo and Rosaria Devanna. Let's discover the history of the museum and some of its most interesting pieces.
Along the ancient street "delli Mercanti" of Bitonto, which connected the main city gate, Porta Baresana, and the Cathedral, in what could be called the Renaissance heart of the town, stands Palazzo Sylos Calò, a noble building that owes its name to Giovanni Alfonso Sylos, Spanish of Burgos who restored in the second half of the sixteenth century a medieval building, adding another floor on the spectacular loggia overlooking the most important square of the ancient city, now called Piazza Cavour. For its appearance, which offers to anyone who admires the palace a complete example of Renaissance civil architecture of Bitonto, in 1902 the Ministry of Education had it included in the List of Monumental Buildings of Italy. So, an architectural treasure of the city that has become even more significant for the history of Bitonto since 2009, when the building was chosen to house the National Gallery of Puglia, the first national gallery in the region dedicated to modern and contemporary art.
Externally, the palace has a Renaissance appearance, with a loggia on columns and pillars and a small inner courtyard, which leads to the outside of many rooms on the ground floor, a staircase with two flights also leads to the main floor, where the rooms are joined and often communicating thanks to a terrace placed above the loggia. The portal, on the other hand, is characterized by ashlars and ashlar pilasters and by two decorative medallions depicting imperial portraits in profile.
The history of the National Gallery of Puglia, also known as the "Girolamo e Rosaria Devanna" Gallery, began in 2004, following an act of great generosity on the part of the owners of a rich and extensive collection of paintings, the brothers Rosaria and Girolamo Devanna, originally from Bitonto. The two brothers owned an exceptional collection of works of art that included hundreds of paintings and drawings (229 paintings and 108 drawings were donated to the State), covering four centuries of history, from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, the result of a great passion for art.
A strong passion accompanied by such generosity and a great gesture of sharing, since in July 2004, the Rosaria and Girolamo decided to donate their complete collection to the State, with the intention of making it public and therefore visible to all, obviously wishing that the works would not be dispersed but, on the contrary, that they would allow themselves to admire them in their city and on their territory. Therefore, at the end of all the necessary steps, from cataloguing and documentation to the choice of the museum location, from restoration to the realization of everything concerning the musicalization of the works, including the didactic apparatus and a brief guide to the museum, the Gallery opened its doors to the public five years later.
Girolamo and Rosaria Devanna (the latter passed away on February 2019, at the age of 71), respectively professors of American literature at the University of Urbino and teachers of literature at secondary schools, both without an academic background in art history, but deeply passionate about the subject and fine connoisseurs in constant contact with art historians, specialists and museum directors, began to collect works of art since the sixties, driven by a great love for art and the desire to establish themselves through the collection, with its pieces collected following two substantial logic: the first, the taste of the two collectors, and the second, the desire to create a collection that would tell the history of art from the sixteenth century onwards.
The works were gathered mainly through purchases and exchanges with other collectors, and in the catalogue of the collection, published in 2005 shortly after the donation, Claudio Strinati retraced the basic reasons that led to the creation of the impressive collection: "the Devanna collection was formed over many years of passionate and very personal research," wrote the art historian, "developed according to criteria of taste and attention to the Ancient that have been rewarded by valid discoveries and many significant results. Strinati then went on to talk about the personality of Girolamo Devanna, the two brothers was the first to have begun to collect works of art: "Devanna falls into that category of collectors for whom the first and basic point lies in the challenge, generous and disinterested, with other experts in the inexhaustible search for the work of art to be acquired. Devanna, a man of vast culture and interests, certainly does not disdain the consultation and advice of art historians and critics and other collectors and, on the contrary, his scrupulousness in documenting and comparing different ideas has always been admirable, but at the same time he also sees the collection as an affirmation of his talent and his ability to discover and identify".
To be continued.