Villa of Masterpieces pays tribute to Luigi Magnani, among the most important collectors of the 20th century

The Magnani-Rocca Foundation in Mamiano di Traversetolo presents from March 14 to July 12, 2020 the exhibition The Last Romantic. Luigi Magnani the Lord of the Villa of Masterpieces, curated by Stefano Roffi and Mauro Carrera.

It is a tribute that the Foundation intends to pay to its founder, in the very place that Magnani himself transformed into a house-museum: the Villa dei Capolavori.
Luigi Magnani was one of the world’s greatest collectors of works: paintings and sculptures by Titian, Goya, Monet, Renoir, Canova, Morandi and many other artists.
The exhibition brings together more than one hundred works from major museums and prestigious collections to tell the story of the collector through his interests, such as painting, music, literature, and the personalities he frequented.

On display are paintings, portraits, self-portraits and autographed documents of artists, critics, men of letters, musicians, directors, and captains of industry whom Magnani frequented; pictorial tributes to his passion for music and antique musical instruments.

On the occasion of the exhibition, a number of works will arrive at the Villa dei Capolavori to be unveiled, including Giovan Battista Moroni’s The Knight in Pink, a 16th-century masterpiece from Bergamo’s Palazzo Moroni.
Other works include Francisco Goya’s The Family of the Infante Don Luis, three Madonnas with Child by Filippo Lippi, Albrecht Dürer and Domenico Beccafumi, Gentile da Fabriano’s Stigmata of St. Francis, Titian ’s Sacred Conversation and Canova’s Tersicore. Also, fifty works by Giorgio Morandi, paintings by Filippo de Pisis, Gino Severini’s Futurist Danseuse, Alberto Burri’s Sacco, sculptures by Giacomo Manzù and Leoncillo, a seascape by Claude Monet, as well as works by Renoir, Matisse, de Staël, Fautrier, and Hartung. The Villa also houses the only room of works by Paul Cézanne in Italy.

The Villa of the Masterpieces was opened in April 1990: works from an almost legendary collection that belonged to one of the most eclectic cultural figures of the 20th century were being unveiled at that time. Luigi Magnani was a writer, essayist, art historian, composer, and music critic, and with his research and writings on Correggio, Morandi, Mozart, Beethoven, Goethe, Stendhal, and Proust, he knew how to reunite the reasons of feeling and those of the intellect.

The exhibition is part of the initiatives of Parma Italian Capital of Culture 2020.

For info: www.magnanirocca.it

Hours: Tuesday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday, Sunday and holidays from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Closed Mondays.

Tickets: Full 12 euros

Pictured, Milton Gendel, Luigi Magnani and Princess Margaret of England in the Villa of the Masterpieces (1984)

Villa of Masterpieces pays tribute to Luigi Magnani, among the most important collectors of the 20th century

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