L’Italia s’è desta. Post-unification mural painting

Following the study days devoted to 17th-Century sculpture held in October 2023, The Marignoli di Montecorona Foundation proposes, again in collaboration with the Fondazione Federico Zeri in Bologna, an indepth examination of the mural painting that developed in the second half of the 19th Century. With the title L’Italia s’è desta. Pittura murale dopo l’Unità, the conference is scheduled to run on October 5th and 6th at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Palazzo Collicola in Spoleto, with the aim of gauging the influence which such grandiose decorative schemes exerted on the new national panorama. Instead of falling into disuse, after 1861 the practice of embarking on extended decoration projects – in both public and private spaces – continued to spread throughout the peninsula, albeit with certain incongruities that have already been noted by contemporary sources. In this regard, art historian Giulio Cantalamessa declared that “Although our century’s footprint is not as large as the 17th’s, it is nonetheless considerable. We have broad mural paintings by Grandi, Mariani, Prosperi, Fontana, Bruschi, Maccari, Perricci, Barilli, Serra, Brugnoli and that ingenious continuer of the Vatican Loggias, Mantovani.