The rediscovery of Torquato Tasso starts from Umbria

The rediscovery of Torquato Tasso starts from Umbria.

The first of a series of meetings dedicated to the theme of Liberated Jerusalem took place in San Gemini (Terni) on Friday 19 May. Organized by Tacconi-Ottelio Group, the seminar which saw the participation of Maria Celeste Cola, Amnon Dion and Giorgio Baratti presented the lines of a project for the study and valorisation of Tasso's work starting from San Gemini and the Jerusalem cycle which decorates the gallery on the main floor of the palace Santacroce aims to extend the invitation to all those Italian institutions, both public and private, which preserve cycles of frescoes or series of paintings inspired by Tasso's poem. The recent purchase by the Tacconi-Ottelio Group of an already large number of ancient editions of the Gerusalemme represents a further incentive to study and collaborate with all those institutions of significant book value that preserve Tasso's editions; from the Angelo Mai Library of Bergamo where, as is known, the center of Tasso studies which has the richest collection of ancient editions in the world is based libraries of Ferrara, Mantua and Sorrento.

With the aim of creating a network of Tasso places in Italy, the project aims to hold a series of meetings with the curators and conservators of extraordinary works scattered throughout Italy; from Villa Valmarana ai Nani near Vicenza, to Palazzo Bentivoglio in Gualtieri, up to Genoa, Florence, Rome, Naples and Conversano in the province of Bari. Equal attention will be paid in future meetings to historians of literature, music and theater with the idea of ​​exploring the theme in depth in his many artistic experiences between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries; from the famous setting to music of the Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda by Claudio Monteverdi in 1624 commissioned by Girolamo Mocenigo on the occasion of the Carnival of that year up to Lully, Rossini and Dvorak.
The meeting was also an opportunity to show the public the folio edition of Gerusalemme illustrated by Giovan Battista Piazzetta released in Venice by Giovan Battista Albrizzi in 1745 and a fundamental source of inspiration for the main artists of the lagoon city, in particular for Giovan Battista Tiepolo who was inspired by the poem both in his works in Vicenza and in his Venetian ones, but also for numerous others painters of the Italian eighteenth century and for most of the eighteenth century cycles including that of Palazzo Corsini in Rome painted in immense grass juices by Ginesio del Barba.

Next to Maria Celeste Cola, Amnon Dor, collector of ancient papers and maps with particular reference to the Holy Land who promptly illustrated and clarified the places, architecture and cities that form the backdrop both to the illustrated editions of Jerusalem, and primarily that of 1590 by Bernardo Castello, and to the frescoes in the gallery of Palazzo Santacroce to which the client entrusted in 1739 the role of self-representation as a “Christian” warrior alongside the pontiff and new feudal lord of San Gemini.
Called to close the meeting the Milanese antiques dealer Giorgio Baratti who, starting from the analysis of the art market situation in the modern era, noted the importance of collecting drawings, engravings and ancient books in the contemporary world.