From Aug. 20 to Sept. 4, the 60th edition of Cortonantiquaria

The first sixty years of Cortonantiquaria: opens Aug. 20 at the Sant’Agostino Convention Center the event that integrates history, document, art and craftsmanship, with works from Italy and around the world, testifying to the multiplicity of tastes, schools, fashions and creative paths.

Promoted by the Municipality of Cortona and Cortona Sviluppo, the event sums up in its name a long tradition that originated here sixty years ago and today offers visitors a rich itinerary among furnishings and everyday objects. Precious and curious items, silverware, ceramics, vases and sculptures, creations from the 1500s to the early decades of the 20th century. Among the works featured in this edition are some wooden statuettes with movable arms from central Italy dating back to the mid-18th century, which were dressed according to the occasion; silk embroideries with gold and silver thread inserts featuring religious iconography; Chinese vases dating back to the 1,800s; an 18th-century Piedmontese flap; and an early 18th-century Florentine terracotta depicting St. John. And many more objects to be discovered at the Sant’Agostino Convention Center.

Flanking Cortonantiquaria is the collateral exhibition Un viaggio nel Futurismo: da Boccioni a Depero curated by Simona Bartolena and coordinated by Daniela Porta of Leo Galleries(Monza). The exhibition is set up in the foyer of the historic Teatro Signorelli.

Luciano Meoni, Mayor of Cortona, sums up the spirit of the event, “It is the 60th birthday and it is an even more special occasion that binds us to Cortonantiquaria, the oldest sector market exhibition nationwide. The municipal administration has never interrupted the organization of this event even in the most difficult years, thanks to the collaboration of Cortona Sviluppo and all the sponsors involved. For the third consecutive year, this important event is being held at the Sant’Agostino Convention Center, which is now the new home of Cortonantiquaria. It is not just an exhibition event but a marketplace, a place where business is done, an event that drives the entire Cortona economy.”

“It is the summer of cultural novelties, but also of welcome confirmations such as that of Cortonantiquaria,” stresses Francesco Attesti, Councillor for Culture and Tourism. “With this historic event we return to offer a program of events and a collateral exhibition that will be able to enhance the works exhibited by antiquarians. After the pandemic, for the first time this year we are noticing a strong return of visitors from all over the world, and we are optimistic about the public attendance that the antiques market exhibition will benefit from. We can already anticipate that, as happened in recent editions, Cortonantiquaria will be accompanied by an important series of events, lectures and concerts.”

“Having landed for the first time in the administration of Cortona Sviluppo,” says CEO Fabio Procacci, “I am happily involved in an initiative that maintains the splendor of its origins and now enjoys new opportunities: research, study, and the deepening of knowledge. While antiquarians used to come to Cortona for this event where they showcased the best, today the concept is further enhanced. The deep knowledge of the public’s tastes, the awareness of what enthusiasts visiting here are looking for, and the desire to maintain a very high cultural level in the range of works on offer, are elements that make Cortonantiquaria an evolved event of its kind. Here one not only admires the contents but also learns stories, imagines lives of people who once owned curious, unusual, valuable and certainly sought-after objects. To all the right value, not only economic but cultural, historical and documentary.”

Comments Cortonantiquaria director Furio Velona: "Sixty years is such a long time to bring about profound changes in society: ideally retracing the steps of a history that seems so distant takes us back to the first edition of our event. When the National Antique Furniture Show opened its doors in 1962, one could see gentlemen in suits and ties and ladies with their handbags on their arms and their skirts just below the knee, wandering among the spaces of the upper rooms of the Signorelli Theater to admire the objects on display. Dividing the antiques dealers’ spaces was a simple line of chalk. Today at the 60th edition of that original exhibition that for many years has been called Cortonantiquaria, we can recall the thousands of people who crowded the rooms first of the theater, then of Palazzo Vagnotti, and today of the Sant’Agostino Convention Center, with several excellent names from Luchino Visconti who arrived in 1963 as an ordinary visitor, to George Lucas almost fifty years later; from political personalities such as Francois Mitterrand, Amintore Fanfani, and Giorgio Napolitano, to the protagonists of current events, between art, jet set, and culture. Our 60th edition opens to wonders you would expect to find at this long-running international antiques show in Italy. Furniture, complements, vases, precious carpets and even paintings, sculptures, a treasure chest that we want to make richer and richer thanks to the participation of an increasing number of antiquarians of excellence. The mastery of ancient savoir-faire has found its showcase here for sixty years, a source of pride for us but also a renewed commitment to fostering that awe without which the objects of the past could not be so loved and sought after. Awe for the stories of others in which we venture, for the time that does not affect the beautiful, for the new life that buyers give to each object that passes from one hand to another finding its new place and new destiny."

The exhibition is supported by the Chamber of Commerce, Banca Popolare di Cortona, Bonifiche Ferraresi, Studio Iureconsulti, with the collaboration of Furio Velona Antichità.

On the occasion of the opening there will be a parade in seventeenth-century costumes in an ideal representation of the society of the time among nobles, commoners and clergymen.

Several packages are available for visitors that include the MAEC Museum, where until Sept. 18 the exhibition Del Barocco Ingegno. Pietro da Cortona and the architectural drawings of the 1600s and 1700s from the Gnerucci collection. Also reconfirmed is the possibility of reduced ticket admission for travelers and tourists arriving in Cortona with Trenitalia, a technical partner of the initiative, sa with regional trains, Intercity, and Frecciarossa.

For all information, you can visit the event’s official website.

From Aug. 20 to Sept. 4, the 60th edition of Cortonantiquaria

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