Giulia Bonarelli Modena: fra critica artistica e militanza. Un’indagine per la messa in valore del legato al museo

Giulia graduated in 1916 with a degree in Medicine and Surgery from the Royal University of Bologna. Married since 1911 to Gustavo Modena, a Jewish psychiatrist of international standing, she supported her husband throughout his long tenure as director of the Doric asylum, accompanying him on his research trips abroad. The methodological progress made by the two scholars is evidenced not only by their countless scientific publications and Dr Giulia’s educational experiments—ranging from theatre performances to impromptu events and art exhibitions, the proceeds of which supported the running of the city’s mental hospital—but also by the craniological museum, the photographic studio and the library, established at the Ancona care institution, based on the model introduced by the conservation and documentation centre founded by Heinrich Obersteiner at the University of Vienna (whose holdings have been incorporated into the Josephinum collections, Collections of the Medical University of Vienna). Worth noting are her constant militant commitment to the promotion of the arts and their educational and rehabilitative value, and the experiments conducted on so-called ‘quiet patients’. She took part in the organisation of the “First Marche Exhibition of Modern Art” in 1921, the National Ceramics Exhibition and the Italian Garden Exhibition of 1931 in Florence, serving on the Marche-Umbria Committee alongside Achille Bertini Calosso, Guido Boccolini, Amedeo Ricci, Luigi Serra and Giorgio Ugolini.