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Cultural heritage
The expression "cultural heritage"
is introduced for the first time in 1954 by the international
convention of Aja, and in Italy it has totally caught on.
In all the countries it represents a cultural value independently
from the fact that it belongs to the public or the private,
that is movable and immovable, that presents an aesthetic
cultural, historical, anthropological, archaeological interest,
etc.
The Italian cultural patrimony is enormously richer than whichever
other European country. Italy is the only country that doesn't
make any distinction among museums, monuments and archaeological
areas. The protection and the increase in value of these three
fields are entrusted to peripheral organisms of the ministry:
the government departments responsible for the environment
and historical buildings.
Useful references
The Ministry for the Cultural Heritage and Activities: besides
the general management for the cultural heritage, it gathers
all the competences in the field of culture, art, show and
the protection of the landscape.
- The Ministry for the Cultural Heritage and Activities
via del Collegio Romano, 27 - 00186 Rome - tel. +3906/67231
- URP tel. +3906/6723980 - +3906/6723990
http://www.beniculturali.it
- E-mail: urp@beniculturali.it
Toll Number 800991199: the call center of the Ministry answers
every day from 9.00 to 20.00, on Saturday and the festive
days from 9.00 to 19.00. Calling from a foreign country
and a mobile phone the telephone number is +3906/88336060
The Italian art
At Cimabue's school takes place the artistic
education of Giotto, the most important artist of the 1300's,
author of the Campanile (Bell tower) of Florence and of the
frescoes of the High Basilica of Saint Francisco in Assisi.
The princes of the ' 400 and the ' 500 entrust painters, sculptors,
architects the task to make residences and cities more attractive.
Likewise is the papal curia: for which in the first half of
the ' 500 work Raffaello and Michelangelo, sculptor (the Mercy,
Basilica of San Pietro), architect (Cupola of San Pietro),
painter (Sistine Chapel). The Renaissance painting, as well
as the literature, rediscovers the topics of the classical
nature: in the painting the Birth of Venere (Gallery of the
Uffizi, Florence) Botticell represents the goddess of love
that was born from the foam of the sea.
Bernini 's baroque
Gian Lorenzo Bernini is the most important interpreter of
the Baroque: architect, painter, set designer, comedy writer
and above all sculptor, completes his artistic education in
Rome, where he works as official artist of popes and the most
important roman families. His artistic production derives
from the fusion between architecture, sculpture and painting.
The most famous sculptures are the Apollo and Daphne (1622-24)
kept in the Gallery of Villa Borghese in Rome and the Ecstasy
of Santa Teresa (1644-51) in the roman church of St Maria
of Victoria. For beyond fifty years Bernini devotes to the
work of widening and decoration of the Basilica of San Pietro,
for which he realizes the square with colonnade (1657-65),
Canopy (1624-33), the Chair of San Pietro (1656-66) and the
graves of two popes. It adorns the main roman public squares
with monumental Fountains, among which Fountain of rivers(1648-51)
in Piazza Navona.
The '700 and the neoclassicism
In the ' 700, Canaletto offers beautiful sights of Venice
and the venetian life dipped in a real light and atmosphere.
This century sees the return of the classical ideals, in literature
as well as in the art, also thanks to the numerous archaeological
diggings, such as those of Ercolano and Pompei. The greatest
interpreter of the Neoclassicism as far as sculpture is concerned
is Antonio Canova (Amore and Psiche, 1787-93, Gipsoteca di
Possagno - TV).
Futurism and poor art
The Italian 1900 is interpreted by various and original authors
such as the futurist Boccioni, Bale, Carrà, and like
George De Chirico, Renato Guttuso and Alberto Butters. The
latter (1915-1995) use for the production of his works poor
material like bags, plastic, tar: the artist assaults the
material with burns and lacerations. The materials are the
absolute protagonists: they do not symbolize anything but
they suggest the states of mind, the sufferings and agonies
of the man and of the life.
Where to see
it
Etruscan culture
and art
The regions that keep the signs of the first great Italian
civilization (starting from the IX century a.C.) are Tuscany,
Lazio and Umbria. Frescoes, chinas, jewels have been found
out above all in theirs graves. Cerveteri and Tarquinia (Lazio)
keep big necropolis. The museums that hold collections of
etruscan art and objects are: the archaeological Museum of
Tarquinia, Julia Villa and the Gregorian Museum in Rome, the
archaeological Museum of Florence, the Civic Museum of Chiusi
and the Museum Guarnacci of Volterra.
Culture and
art of the imperial Rome
The golden age of Rome, its happier period, the one of Traiano,
Adrian and Marco Aurelio, has left manufactured goods, art
works, mosaics, frescoes, columns, entire buildings, roads,
water systems, baths, theatres and cities, like Pompei, that
buried by the eruption of Vesuvio in 79 d.C., is witness of
the daily life of the time. The places pre-eminently where
to see the every day life of the Romans are Pompei and Ercolano
(Campania). Then the archaeological Museum of Naples, the
Pantheon and the Colosseum in Rome, Villa Adriana and Ostia
in the vicinity. But Roman traces are present in all Italy,
from the Arc of Augusto in Aosta to the fascinating Villa
of the Casale in Piazza Armerina, in Sicily.
Byzantine culture
and art
After the fall of the roman empire, the continuity of the
Christian religion has made it possible that many monuments
of the late empire and the byzantine period have been preserved.
The catacombs and the big basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore
in Rome. The church of San Vitale and Saint Apollinare with
its spectacular mosaics in Ravenna, administrative main city
of the empire of East. A great example of late byzantine architecture
is St Mark's Basilica in Venice, but also in Calabria, in
Stilo, you can find a beautiful byzantine church, the Catholic.
Culture and art of the
the maritime republic of the high Middle Ages
The fight between papacy and empire and the invasion of people
like the Hungars and the Normans keep on , but in the meanwhile
bloom the city states and the maritime republic. The most
powerful is Venice, followed by Pisa, Genoa and Amalfi. In
the St Mark's Basilica in Venice the western and eastern styles
and decorations have been put together in order to create
one of the most spectacular buildings of the world. It is
worth visiting the church of San Antonio in Padua (Veneto),
the Dome and the Torre pendente (Hanging Tower) in Pisa and
the Castle of the Emperor in Prato (Tuscany), the Castle of
Federico II in Castel del Monte (Apulia).
Culture and art of the
low Middle Ages
The guelfs, in favour of the papacy, and the Ghibellines,
in favour of the empire, continue theirs quarrel, while the
Longobardic and Tuscan cities are strengthened. In this period
of political confusion, artists such as Duccio Buoninsegna
and Giotto give life to a huge moment of the painting, and
the Tuscan writers Dante, Petrarca and Boccaccio give birth
to the Italian literature. The Italian art of the XIII and
XIV century is imitated in all Europe. For the first time
from the classic period, painters and sculptors create works
in which the human profiles and the objects are realistic.
Therefore the perspective concept was born and is introduced
again the technique of frescoes, that allows to realize true
and real picturesque narrations.
Tuscany, Umbria and Lazio are the regions that better preserve
their medieval aspect. Many public buildings go back to this
period, like Palazzo Vecchio in Florence and Palazzo Pubblico
in Siena, and some cities bring us back magically behind in
the time. Not to miss Volterra and San Gimignano in Tuscany,
the Dome of Orvieto, one of the most beautiful gothic cathedrals
in Italy, Gubbio and Todi in Umbria, Viterbo in Lazio.
Culture and art of the
Renaissance
The art of the Renaissance, the great cultural movement born
in Italy in the XV century, influences deeply the history
of the culture and the European civilization, not only Italian.
After the man's marginality in comparison with the divine
designs undergone during the centuries of the Middle Ages,
the Renaissance ranks the human being and the secular world
at the centre of the universe.
The great men of the Renaissance, philosophers like Giordano
Bruno and Tommaso Campanella, scientists like Copernico and
Galileo Galilei, students like Macchiavelli, poets like Ariosto,
musicians like Palestrina and Monteverdi, holders of "a
modern" vision of the world and the society shared and
supported by a rich and bold bourgeoisie, change to the root
the way to think, to act and to create. But this is also a
period of political instability, that will bring Italy to
the decadence.
In the arts and the architecture, the Renaissance means masterpiece,
inventive and creative genius. This great artistic season
has left magnificent traces in all Italy. We remember Florence,
with its palaces and the Uffizi, but also Venice, Urbino and
Mantua. Not to miss is the Sistine Chapel and the Rooms of
Raffaello in Rome.
Baroque Italy
It is the period of the Counter-Reformation that against the
threat of the Protestantism imposes, supported by the Inquisition,
a rigid orthodoxy. In the half ' 500, with the creation of
new religious orders like the one of the Jesuits, the new
rules established by the sacred architecture and the iconography
give birth to the dynamic and theatre shapes of the baroque.
The baroque art particularly is tied to Rome, with Piazza
Navona and the churches of Borromini and Bernini. But other
exuberant examples can be found in Lecce (Apulia), Palermo,
Noto and Siracusa (Sicily), and in Turin.
The art of the 1700's
Finally a period of peace after the treaty of Acquisgrana
in1748, at least until Napoleon's Italy campaign, in 1796,
when starts a season of political and social upheavals. Italy
becomes the main European tourist destination, the young well-off
people visit our cities, discover our artistic treasures and
the recent diggings of Pompei. Among the many poets arrive
in our Country Goethe, Keats, Shelley and Byron. In these
years are created monuments like the Steps of Piazza di Spagna,
Trevi Fountain, the Venere by Canova in Rome and the museum
Pio-Clementino in Vatican. The most imposing neoclassic building
is the Reggia di Caserta (Campania).
The art of the Renaissance
(http://www.risorgimento.it)
This is the period of the fights against the foreign dominion,
that culminates in the unification of Italy in 1870. All the
Italian cities pay homage to the heroes of the Renaissance,
Garibaldi, Mazzini, Cavour, Vittorio Emanuele dedicating to
them roads, public squares and monuments. Giuseppe Verdi,
Donizetti and Rossini give life to the golden period of the
Italian opera. The city where the art of the period has left
the most intense testimony is Turin, main city of the Reign
of Italy, where you can visit the best museum of the Renaissance.
The art of the nine hundred
The first post-war period brought Italy to the long period
of fascism (1922- 1943) and to Mussolini's dictatorship. In
spite of the destruction from which it comes out after the
Second world war, the Country has reached a unimaginable level
of economy and life at the beginning of the century. The Italian
Republic, instituted by popular referendum in 1946, has experienced
many crises, and the social problems of the second post-war
period have inspired the greatest European artistic currents:
from cinema to fashion, from art to architecture. The innovations
in the industry of the glass and of iron allowed such constructions
as the gallery Vittorio Emanuele in Milan. The Mole
Antonellianaof Turin, with its granite spire, was at the
age the highest building of the world. The Pirelli skyscraper
of Milan, planned by Ponti and Nervi at the end of years '
50, is an example of the use of the reinforced concrete in
the modern Italian architecture.
Italian museums
Italy has the greatest museum patrimony of the
world . This is due to the fact that it has an art patrimony
that represents approximately half of the world-wide one.
Italy is an unique example in the world, not only for the
abundance of the works, but because there is an uninterrupted
continuity of art work in all the ages, starting from the
Paleolitic, without interruptions, as if every invention and
artistic form had been first experienced in our Country. And
goodness knows how many works are still underground and in
the seas!
The Italian art winds up among the prestigious museums that
collect the most valuable works of the world, like the Pinacoteca
di Brera, the Galleria
of Uffizi in Florence, the Vatican
Museums the in Rome.
The importance of the Italian museums does not only depend
on the wealth of the collections, the value of the works and
the level of the scientific research , but also on its availability
to inexperienced people. In the last thirty years the museum
has transformed in an important social and educational instrument.
As an example, the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome
has an average monthly influxof 4000 visitors.
The Italian museums arrange for long guided visits and opening
hours. They often organize thematic exhibitions, conferences
and seminaries.
On the entrance tickets there are many facilities offered from the Cities and the Ministry of the Cultural Heritage.
Useful references:
- Ministry of the Cultural Heritage: http://www.museionline.it
All the museums region by region, the opening timetables,
the entrance prices . Information on the temporary collections,
exhibitions and the cultural events in all the Country.
http://www.beniculturali.it/servizi/prenotazionemusei.asp
On line reservations service of the Ministry for the Cultural
Heritage and Activities that uses the site for the reservations
http://www.ticketeria.it.
- Art on the net: http://www.arteinrete.it/Musei/In_Italia/
The site collects updated information on beyond three thousand
museums in all Italy, whose a wide informative card of the
services is dedicated to each of them.
- Museumland: http://www.museumland.com
The world-wide Portal on the Museums and the Cultural Heritage:
through the portal you can have access to more than 8000
sites of museums of 118 nations.
- Art Engine: http://www.artemotore.com/index-7.html
Site on the art in Italy with references to Museums, Galleries
and authors.
- Art Dream Guide: http://www.artdreamguide.com/adg/adg_ITA/home.htm
A guide to the cities, the museums, the exhibition centres
and the spaces of Italy, important for the modern art and
the contemporary art.
- Gyroscope http://www.giroscopio.com/musei/
Search engine on the museums in Italy
- In Italy Online http://www.initaly.com/regions/museums/netintro.htm
In English. Created by a group of travel agents (with correspondents
in Italy) it is composed of various sections that give information
on the Italian life, what to see, etc.
- Historical dwellings http://www.dimorestoriche.com
The site permits to carry out aimed searches, selecting
the region, the route, the event and the dwelling of your
interest in Italy. The database is rather wide and articulated.
It contains news, review and a photo gallery of the most
beautiful dwellings.
Literature
The most ancient literary writing
in Italian language is the Canticle of the Creatures by San
Francesco d' Assisi (1225). In the ' 300 three great protagonists
of our literature operate: Dante, Petrarca and Boccaccio,
father of the novel. His Decameron, glare of the mercantile
civilization of the age, characterizes the personages through
their same actions and becomes a model for the following centuries.
In the ' 400 and the ' 500 the poem is predominantly chevalric,
renewed by Torquato Tasso with Gerusalemme
Liberata (1575). With the Promessi
Sposi (1840) by Alessandro Manzoni a new language springs
up, not literary but common and comprehensible to the majority,
and also a new vision of the reality, experienced by the humble
people. This is the first great novel of Italian literature,
and paves the way for verism, careful to the present and to
the aspects of the daily life. With Giovanni Pascoli starts
the modern Italian poetry: the "fanciullino" discovers
a more secret and mysterious world of reality, source of anxiety
and dominated by the sense of death, detaching itself clearly
from the d'Annunzio's rhetorical style. Explicit, in the first
half of the 1900's, the will of breach of the futurist, that
with F. T. Marinetti, its founder, results in exasperated
dynamism of the tones.
In the last twenty years there are not strong lines of tendency,
but a quite fragmented panorama. Among the most prominent
authors we remember Calvin, E. Morante, P. Levi, L. Sciascia,
A, Moravia.
Among the writers of the last generations we can signal for
their public success and critic P.V. Tondelli (prematurely
disappeared), A De Carl, M. Lodoli, D. Of the Judge, A Busi,
and above all for the commercial success they have obtained,
A Baricco and S. Tamaro. As far as the poetry is concerned,
relegated to the margins of publishing., besides the "classics"
of the 1900's, like A Bertolucci, M. Luzi, V. Sereni, G. Caproni,
A Zanzotto, made their appearence poets of great interest
like M. Cucchi and V. Magrelli.
The Italian fashion
The history of the Italian fashion begins with
the fashion show organized by the count Giorgini in Florence
in 1951. Giorgini offers to an international public the mythical
place of the nobility. The noble women quite often act as
models: they know, for education, tradition and culture, how
to put on the clothes and to show them in the rich spaces
of their houses or in the museums, beside sculptures that
are the same image of the beautiful. Also the cinema plays
its role in the fashion. In ' 49, for Linda Christian and
Tyron Power's wedding, the dress for the spouse is chosen
in Rome, and also this contributes to create the myth of the
Country of the beautiful, of the art, of the love. The dress,
like the talisman of fables, becomes the magical element that
allows the transformation.
When in years ' 60 the roles and the social status change,
the the anti-establishment activity catches on and the industry
experiences its "boom" (the economic re-launching),
also the dress is seen as idea and planning. The models of
the confection in series spring up and are used to dress women
of half world in an elegant and economic way. Therefore the
made in Italy is asserted all over the world, and when in
'70 and '80 years prevails with the prêt-à-porter,
Milan becomes the main city of it and keeps this role up to
the contemporary tendencies, which are tied to the artistic
vanguards and the various cultural movements of the 1900's.
All in all, the function of the fashion in Italy is deeply
various in comparison with Paris, London or New-York. For
us the fashion is an instrument of social redemption, the
dress can permit a class raising. Outside our borders the
fashion is just an instrument in order to confirm a status.
Useful References:
- Ansa: http://www.ansa.it/notiziari/not_mod.html
News-bulletin on Fashion by Ansa,updated in real time on
the Italian fashion and the custom. Profiles, news, curiosity.
- Fashion Library: http://www.fashionlibrary.it
one virtual bookcase in which finding all on the fashion:
books, reviews, exhibitions, seminaries and the possibility
to make researches.
- Fashion on line:
http://www.modaonline.it
Site dedicated to all what has come into fashion and tendency.
You can fin many photographic reportage of the parades.
- DellaModa: http://www.dellamoda.it
Portal of the publishing house Baldini&Castoldi, it
contains various sections dedicated to events, personages,
tendencies of the fashion.
The Italian design
In the last decade, thanks to the
work of such artists of years ' 50 and ' 60 as Aulenti, Castiglioni
and Magistretti, our Country has become the point of confluence
of the new creative generations at international level. From
the industrial design to the furnishing and the car design,
the Italian style identifies itself for the mixture of fantasy
and strict plans.
Schools in the van in the planning, University faculties,
exhibitions and other places of communication give origin
to a panorama quite diversified and dynamic. The Italian design
joins functionality and irony, and invents again the objects
also using discarded materials or as a makeshift.
It is a design rich of emotionality, full of suggestions and
restlessness: a lot of objects, besides being functional,
transmit a strong human and affective outburst, so that this
kind of design is called "convivial design". But
the emotional tendencies are placed side by side with works
of great rationality in which the research regards, above
all, the materials, the colours, the weavings.
There is also a"convivial design" , that comprises
tables, chairs, lamps, batteries of pots, small objects of
daily use. The furnishing of the house is one of the fields
in which the modern design has found its maximum application.
Useful References:
- Arreditalia: http://www.arreditalia.it
A guide to the design on Internet. Fairs, exhibitions, manufacturing
companies and all what is available on the net on the furnishing.
- Italian home news: http://www.italianhomenews.com
The first interactive magazine on the topic: tendencies,
products, fairs, companies. In Italian and English.
Theatre
The Italian theatre has roots in the Latin and
Greek culture. From always constituted of wandering companies,
the Italian theatre system is still based on the mechanism
of the tours. However after the second world war stable theatres
are spreading also in Italy, with permanent centre and company
and public financing. After 1861 most of the citizens of the
united Italy still spoke the dialect, therefore the dialectal
theatre blooms, above all in the Neapolitan area thanks to
the De Filippo siblings. Eduardo De Filippo's personages (1900-1984),
of popular and small-bourgeois origin try, not without contradictions,
the social climb. In his theatre, Eduardo reflects the experiences
made in first person by the audience gathered in the stalls,
towards which he expresses a complete solidarity.
An important name in the history of the Italian theatre is
the one of the director George Strehler, that in the post-war
period, with Luchino Visconti, has been the founder of the
modern direction in Italy.
In years ' 50 you can mark out interesting directors such
as Luigi Squarzina, Mario Missiroli, Giancarlo Cobelli, Aldo
Trionfo; the most representative names between years ' 70
and ' 80 are Luca Ronconi and Massimo Castri.
Today the Neapolitan tradition keeps alive with Eduardo's
son, Luca De Filippo, while Dario Fo, Prize Nobel for literature,
remains the main protagonist of the Italian theatre.
Cinema
The first film shot in Italy, Umberto
and Margherita of Savoia walking in the park, by Vittorio
Calcina, dates back to 1896. It is, as well as for all other
films of the first period, a documentary short.
De Sica, Rossellini and Visconti, inspired by the social problems
of Italy of second post-war period, create masterpieces like
Roma città aperta e Paisà (Rome open city and
Paisà), with a modern style and a strongly recognizable
narrative structure. Critical attention towards the society,
innovations of language and popularity are the elements that
allow the Italian cinema to continue to stand out with the
Italian comedy of the successive decade, in the works of directors
such as Mario Monicelli, Pietro Germi, Antonio Pietrangeli
and Dino Risi.
The Italian cinema of years ' 60 is also the experimental
one by Michelangelo Antonioni, the "genre" one by
Sergio Leoni, the poetical one by Federico Fellini and the
social one by Pier Paolo Pasolini and Ferreri.
La dolce vita (The sweet life) by Fellini becomes a usage
case. The description of the luxurious and flashing world,
empty and poor of ideals prevails over the rapresentation
of a difficult reality such as the one of the neorealism.
Unforgettable is Luchino Visconti's literary cinema and the
political one of Bellocchio, Scola and Moretti, authors who
continue to exert an infuence on directors of all the world.
After the dark period of years Eighty, with the little exceptions
represented by directors such as Amelio and Lucchetti, the
Italian cinema has a small revival with Salvatores, Tornatore
and Calopresti.
Useful References
Music
Born from a rib of the serious opera, the Italian
melodic tradition has experienced in the last forty years
big changes. The outbreak of the rock ' n' roll has influenced
and modified the Italian song of the origins with such wild
young people as Mina, Adriano Celentano, Rita Pavone and Gianni
Morandi. But a truly original dimension is constituted by
the author song. For Gino Paoli, Luigi Tenco, Bruno Lauzi,
Sergio Endrigo the song expresses an inner world. Also Fabrizio
De Andrè's songs, influenced by Bob Dylan and Leonard
Cohen's music, have a intimist climate. Roberto Vecchioni
inquires the inner space telling a Milan focused on the private
emotions. Lucio Battisti 's Music combines deep characteristics
of the American rhytm ' n' blues with the Italian melodic
form using a simple and at the same time dramatic language.
Other important names of Italian music are poets-story-tellers
like Francesco De Gregori and Francesco Guccini and the representatives
of the national rock like Vasco Rossi Ligabue and Zucchero.
Lucio Dalla begins as jazz-band instrumentalist and continues
towards the definition of a personal style that comprises
also plans of musical theatre. The recovery of the vocal style
of romance, culminating in tenors like Pavarotti and Bocelli,
has begun in fact starting from Caruso and Lucio Dalla's clamorous
world success.
The Italian light music is represented also by singers musicians
who find their models in the jazz, like Paolo Conte's piano,
or in the blues, like Pino Daniele's guitar, or in the folk,
such as Angelo Branduardi's violin. The author song finds
today new directions with personalities of great comunicative
thickness.
See also the sections "Appointments
and manifestations" and " Tourist Information
- Cultural holidays"
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