Review of the exhibition "La Firenze di Giovanni e Telemaco Signorini". In Florence, Palazzo ANtinori, from 19 September to 10 November 2019.
The discovery, in 2008, of an important correspondence between Telemaco Signorini (Florence, 1835 - 1901), one of the main painters of the second Ottocente and the leading name of the Macchiaioli movement, and his father Giovanni (Florence, 1810 - 1862), a leading artist of the Lorraine court just before the unification of Italy and a landscape painter (and not only) able to satisfy a demanding international clientele, is the basis of the fine exhibition La Firenze by Giovanni and Telemaco Signorini, the first-ever organised in the spaces of Palazzo Antinori, in the Tuscan capital: the main floor of the building, which for five centuries has belonged to the Marquises, today famous everywhere for their wine production, is open to the public for the first time.
The exhibition, curated by Elisabetta Matteucci and Silvio Balloni, comes ten years after the last opportunity to exhibit Telemaco Signorini (the great exhibition of Palazzo Zabarella in Padua: held in 2009, gave the opportunity to retrace with depth and depth the entire career of the Florentine painter, so punctually that Signorini, from that date, no longer had exhibitions dedicated to him), and is proposed with two substantial innovations, so far not yet investigated with so much detail: the first is the relationship between father and son, the second is their bond with Florence, for both of them indissoluble (even for Telemaco, despite his open and cosmopolitan mentality, his propensity to travel, his repeated stays in Italy and abroad).
One could say that the city became the protagonist of the exhibition, together with the two painters: with the paintings that follow one another in the eight sections of the exhibition (and arranged in a unique arrangement, which promotes a close view, on three rooms of the main floor of Palazzo Antinori) are retraced almost seventy years of history, around the crucial transition from the center of the Grand Duchy of Lorraine to capital, from 1865 and for six years until 1871, the newly proclaimed Kingdom of Italy.
The constant between two epochs so different is the opening to the world of Florence, the modernity of its ruling class, it is undeniable and priceless international appeal that attracted, in this long span of time, many illustrious personalities of art, economy, and politics. An opening that also characterized the last years of Lorraine rule: despite a court of great proportions, and despite a ceremony that had never been streamlined from the Medici onwards (this heavy apparatus, moreover, was necessary to give Lorraine visibility in the eyes of the world), the intent of the ruling family was to transmit to its subjects a new image of power, more in line with the times.
Hence, the great public works (the architectural modernizations that were promoted in all the main centers of Tuscany, the reclamations, the expansion of the port of Livorno, the infrastructure, starting with the construction of the railway network and the improvement of the road network), the tax reforms (such as that of 1824-1825 that managed to significantly reduce the tax burden), those in favor of individual freedoms (starting with the reform of the press that significantly reduced the mesh of censorship allowing Florence to become an important publishing center: only the measures adopted after the uprisings of '48 would have dealt a hard blow to this conquest), the reform of the university system, and several other measures.
- The short period in which Florence was the capital of the kingdom was, however, sufficient to radically change the face of the city with a profound reorganization of the historic center (many were the demolitions and demolitions to make room for a new idea of the city, and the urban plan developed by Giuseppe Poggi was not exempt from strong criticism) and with the expansion of the city to neighboring areas, invaded by new neighborhoods that had to meet the new needs of the city designated to be the capital of Italy.
To be continued.