Seven new rooms opened at Treviso's Luigi Bailo Museum, with more than 100 new works

The permanent exhibition itinerary of Treviso ’s Luigo Bailo Museum has been enriched with seven new rooms: in fact, the Donations and Donors route has been inaugurated, welcoming more than 100 new works, thanks to important bequests to civic museums.

Starting from the Nineteenth-century Gallery, expanded with a new large hall, visitors can admire the precious collection of works donated by Sante Giacomelli in 1874. In this section, alongside celebrated examples of historical Romanticism, works by artists such as Vincenzo Abbati, Giuseppe Bernardino Bison, Ippolito Caffi, Natale and Felice Schiavoni, Rosa Bortolan, Pietro Paoletti, and Eugenio Moretti Larese stand out. These works are complemented by a series of 19th-century artistic ceramics made by the Treviso-based Fontebasso manufactory.

The second room is dedicated to portraits of donors. This tribute to those who have generously enriched the civic heritage includes portraits executed by Lino Selvatico and Guiscardo Sbrojavacca, as well as those by Luigi Serena depicting members of the Provera and Lorenzon families, not to mention works by Dario Gobbi. A small room is then reserved for the self-portraits of some of the leading artists at the Bailo. These include Luigi Serena, Guglielmo Ciardi, Antonio Carlini, Giovanni Apollonio, Guido Cadorin, Giovanni Barbisan, Renato Nesi, Sante Cancian, Aldo Voltolin, Toni Benetton, Renato de Giorgis, and Juti Ravenna.

The latest entries, for which special rooms have been allocated, include a selection of early 20th-century Treviso ceramics “Ceramiche E. Lazzar” in Art Nouveau style and a nucleus of early sculptures by Arturo Martini.

The itinerary continues with 20th-century sculptors Umberto Feltrin, Alfiero Nena, Toni Benetton, Augusto Murer, Gino Cortelazzo, Carlo Conte, Ugo Arvedi and Sergio Storel. Also on display are works by Giovanni Raffaelli, Ettore Calvelli, Marcello Mascherini and Gianni Aricò. This enriches the sections devoted to artists already in the permanent exhibitions, such as Nino Springolo and Giovanni Barbisan, and allows visitors to become acquainted with the works of Giovan Battista Canal and other artists of the 1930s, placed in the context of the “gigantism of art” represented by Martini, Carrà, and Campigli. The rooms also house works by Achille Funi and the large sketches for the Treviso War Memorial.

Closing the itinerary are paintings and works by Carmelo Zotti and Renato de Giorgis that came from very recent donations to the city’s collections.

“They are concrete evidence,” emphasizes Treviso Mayor Mario Conte, “of the love that the people of Treviso, but not only, have for their Museums and for their City. With these rooms we are thus giving the community an account of some of these treasures that until now were in storage, and we are also showing some pieces from recent acquisitions. Last in order of time those of Arturo Martini and Gino Rossi, or Carmelo Zotti and Gino Cortelazzo to whom future insights will be able to better investigate their figures.”

“Dedicating these new rooms ideally to ’Donations and Donors,’” stresses Maria Teresa De Gregorio, councillor for Culture of the City of Treviso, “also means paying homage to the generosity of collectors. Behind every donation lies the choice, the will, the generosity of one or more donors with their families who, with their gesture, wanted to consign to collective memory works that they have loved and long kept in their families and homes. Works, let us remember, that also have a truly significant patrimonial value, and also for this the gesture of so many donors must be even more recognized.”

“The tradition of donating family art treasures to civic collections,” recalls civic museums director Fabrizio Malachin, “is as old as our Museum whose date of birth coincides precisely with the donation of Margherita Grimaldi Prati’s collection in 1851. Following her example, many other donors have allowed the public collections to increase to their current size-a tradition that has never been interrupted.”

Seven new rooms opened at Treviso's Luigi Bailo Museum, with more than 100 new works

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