Outgoing volume on the political writings of Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti. The presentation in Florence

Tuscany pays tribute to one of its most representative figures of the 20th century with a public event intended to restore centrality to an often neglected part of his biography: political engagement. On Thursday, May 22, 2025, at 5 p.m., in the Sala Pegaso of Palazzo Strozzi Sacrati in Florence, headquarters of the Presidency of the Region of Tuscany, the volume Scritti politici 1942-1986 by Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti (Lucca, 1910 - Florence, 1987) will be presented. The initiative, with free admission, is part of the broader work of the Ragghianti Foundation to make fully accessible the legacy of its founder, not only as a historian and art critic, but also as a political actor and protagonist of post-World War II Italian civic life.

The volume, published by Edizioni Fondazione Ragghianti Studi sull’arte, is edited by historian and archivist Andrea Becherucci with the collaboration of Maria Francesca Pozzi. It collects for the first time in an organic manner essays, articles, speeches and documents that outline the profile of the committed intellectual, militant anti-fascist and man of institutions. The anthology also consists of a valuable appendix of unpublished texts, which helps to complete the picture of Ragghianti’s political thought, shedding light on aspects that have so far remained in the shadows with respect to his better-known activity as an art historian. Ragghianti continuously traversed some of the most crucial phases of twentieth-century Italian history. A founder, together with his wife Licia Collobi, of the institute that now bears his name, he was a leading figure in the Resistance and one of the founders of the Partito d’Azione. In 1945, in the Parri government, he held the position of undersecretary for Public Education, testifying from the outset to his desire to combine culture, public ethics and political responsibility.

The writings collected in the volume document an itinerary that, for more than four decades, saw Ragghianti intervene in the national debate on crucial issues such as public schools, university autonomy, the protection of cultural heritage and the secularity of the state. Among the interventions within the book, those related to Ragghianti’s activities within the Tuscan Committee for National Liberation, of which he was president, and the reflections he developed during his postwar government experience stand out. Speakers at the event will include Eugenio Giani, president of the Region of Tuscany; Alberto Fontana, president of the Ragghianti Foundation; Paolo Bolpagni, director of the Ragghianti Foundation; Valdo Spini, president of the Circolo Fratelli Rosselli Foundation of Florence; Michele Dantini, full professor of History ofArt at the University for Foreigners of Perugia, and Andrea Becherucci, editor of the volume and archivist at the Historical Archives of the European Union at the European University Institute in Florence. The stated aim of the publication and the Foundation that promotes it is to restore visibility to a part of his activity that remains crucial to understanding his overall figure. Long identified almost exclusively with art criticism and museum promotion, Ragghianti was instead also a coherent political thinker, capable of elaborating visions and strategies in the fields of education, culture and the safeguarding of the commons.

“If we considered Ragghianti only as an art historian and theorist,” writes the Foundation’s director, PaoloBolpagni, in the preface, “we would miss an aspect that completes and supports all the others: politics. Through his texts, a figure emerges clearly who conceived politics as an ethical and cultural commitment, aimed at the defense of freedom, justice and democracy.”

Outgoing volume on the political writings of Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti. The presentation in Florence

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