«Un qualche piccolo lustro alla Patria comune». Per una storia della Pinacoteca civica “Francesco Podesti” di Ancona

This volume gives voice to the art historians which in Twentieth century have succeeded in Ancona, re-interpreting the reasons of their choices according to the of artistic historiography and the value of protection carried out on the territory. In the continuous dialogue between the center and the periphery, the diachronic approach of the narration is divided into three sections, related to three different seasons of the life of the civic art gallery. The first section analyzes the action of the Commissione per la conservazione dei Monumenti storici e letterari e degli oggetti di antichità e d’arte established by Lorenzo Valerio before the well-known decree of suppression, in the context of a more challenging educational design for the museum. This is the heritage he wanted to deliver to the post-unitary protection. The second section, divided into three chapters, traces the history of the institution starting from the opening to the public of the post-unitary collections, when the museum was the temple of the gloriae patriae and a viable and evolving organism. According to the progression of critical studies, the research starts from the review of Lionello Venturi’s and Luigi Serra’s works and extends to the period of annexation of the civic collections to the National Archaeological Museum. Due to the impact of historical events on the heritage, a large part of the research is related to the WWI and WWII and to the post-wars rearrangement of the collections. The dynamics referred to the private collecting were included when strictly related to the common heritage and to the museum and its communities, including the important Jewish Community that, since the thirteenth century, rooted thanks to the progress of trade with the Levant. The third section ends at ‘70s, once the Franceschini Commission introduced a cultural change and an independent Ministry and Regions were instituted. This period has almost coincided with the transfer of the Civic Art Gallery of Ancona to Palazzo Bosdari, the present location, and with a substantial expansion of the collections which has changed their functioning. The study traces insights in the direction of the full implementation of the social mission of the places of memory. The research is accompanied by a large documentary appendix which lists the inventories relating to the balance sheet of the collections and the critical edition, in transcription from the originals, of a selection of the documentary sources found during the research, including a substantial part of the institution administrative correspondence lost as a large part of the municipal historical archive for the period 1860-1950.