Academic literature on the topic 'Piero Clerici'

L'articolo analizza la vita e l'ideologia del Centro nazionale italiano, la formazione politica piů rappresentativa del clerico-fascismo italiano fondata nel 1924 da cattolici conservatori e filofascisti espulsi dal Partito popolare italiano. Il Cni garantě il suo pieno sostegno politico al fascismo, traendone ragione dal legame indissolubile e provvidenziale esistente, a suo avviso, fra cattolicesimo e nazione italiana. Un legame che la politica religiosa del fascismo avvalorava, restituendo alla fede cattolica il rilievo pubblico che il liberalismo le aveva sottratto. Il Vaticano vide con iniziale benevolenza l'attivitŕ del Cni, ma poi incominciň a diffidarne per l'eccessivo filofascismo e per l'autonomia con cui esso si muoveva rispetto alla Santa sede. I sospetti si accrebbero a seguito delle frizioni con l'Azione cattolica e della condanna dell'Action française. Nel 1928 Pio XI condannň duramente il Cni, segnando la fine di questo progetto clerico-fascista, mentre l'accordo fra regime e istanze cattoliche avrebbe seguito la via del Concordato del 1929.

In the Middle Age and the Early Modern Times alchemy (transmutation into gold or chrysopoeia) was a widespread art and a popular craft of creating artificial gold. Because if failed to produce any practical results it shifted from the initial experimental practice (proto-chemistry) ever more to mysticism and spirituality. In Snježana Paušek-Baždar’s Croatian Alchemists through the Centuries alchemy is seen almost exclusively from this supernatural and super-sensory point of view, ignoring the history of natural sciences, and especially chemistry. Cited sources and the preference for Christian mysticism and esotericism clearly revealthe authorʼs unscientific approach to alchemy, one that is best suited for the pro-Western syncretic and eclectic social movement (and ideology) of improvised merging of the various incomparable beliefs, orientations, cosmic teachings and contemporary sciences, the New Age and the plethora of deriving pseudosciences, where modern alchemy appears to have found its home. Nine alchemists are represented in this highly acclaimed (both from the public and Croatian scientific community) book Croatian Alchemists through the Centuries: Barbara of Cilli, Daniel Justinopolitanus, Pietro Buono, John the Cleric, Frederik Grisogono, Giulio Camillo Delminio, Giovanni Bratti, Ivan Leopold Payer and Ignjat Martinović. Critical, scientific and historical analysis of these alleged Croatian alchemists determined that none of them deserve the epithet ʼCroatian Alchemistʼ: they either were not alchemists in the true sense of the word, or do not belong to the Croatian ethnical corps. According to Paušek-Baždar, three of them were from Pula (Daniel Justinopolitanus, Pietro Buono and Giovanni Bratti), which is a historical fabrication since only Pietro Buono spent a short time in Pula. Moreover their ethnic affiliation was certainly not Croatian. The other five men and one woman may have sporadically dabbled in alchemy, so they can, at best, be considered quasi- or semi-alchemists. Again, the Croatian nationality of than a some of these is rather questionable. The New Age approach of Croatian Alchemists Through the Centuries is alchemically unconvincing and ethnically (Croatian) manipulative, full of esoteric mists, astrological shadows, Christian mysteries, gnostic spectres, hermetic gloom, historical fictions, superficial interpretations, and tendentious explanations. In conclusion, the book is a historically arbitrary and scientifically unfounded New Age, pseudo-science.

The origins of the Humiliati have long been a subject of discussion amongst historians. In the twentieth century the first person to grapple with the problems was Antonino de Stefano, who was quickly followed by Luigi Zanoni, later by Herbert Grundmann and Ilarino da Milano, and more recently by Michele Maccarrone, Brenda Bolton, and Maria Pia Alberzoni. The modern writers have accepted de Stefano’s view that the Humiliati first emerged in northern Italy in the late twelfth century. The earliest references, dating from the 1170s, describe both a small group of lay men and women devoted to the religious life (humiliati per deum), and an association of clerics living in community at the church of San Pietro Viboldone. Although they initially sought papal approval, those who ‘falsely called themselves Humiliati’ were condemned in 1184 by Lucius III, not because they were guilty of doctrinal error but because they refused to stop preaching without authority or holding private meetings, probably also because of their rejection of oath-taking. In spite of this setback the Humiliati flourished, and by the end of the twelfth century three distinct elements were recognizable: married or single lay men and women living a religious life while remaining in their own homes, male and female monastics living in common under a rule, and clerics living in some sort of canonical communities. In June 1201 these groups were brought back into the Church under the auspices of Innocent III. He gave approval to the three groups or ‘orders’ which recent research has revealed were already distinct before curial intervention, but which were now organized into one framework along Cistercian lines. It was a fortunate decision. Although groups described as ‘Humiliati’ were expelled from Cerea in 1203 and Faenza in 1206, the Order of the Humiliati went on to enjoy spectacular success, becoming a major presence in the religious, economic, and administrative life of northern Italy in the thirteenth century.

There are now a number of ways to describe the phenomena which come under the umbrella of innovations in Roman Catholicism in the early modern period including “Counter Reformation”; “Catholic Reformation” and “Early Modern Catholicism.” After a brief survey of the various labels used by scholars over the last half century or more, this article seeks to rehabilitate the use of the label “Counter Reformation” in the light, particularly, of the determining role played by the Holy Office (aka Roman Inquisition) in shaping the Catholic Church down to Vatican ii (1962-65). A key role in this was played by Gian Pietro Carafa, who was made head of the congregation of the Holy Office at its foundation in 1542 and who became pope as Paul iv in 1555. During the key decades from the 1540s to 1570s the Inquisition in Rome set the agenda and by means, not only, of a series of trials of prominent members of the clerical establishment whom they regarded as their enemies, succeeded in intimidating their opponents. In doing so they also subverted episcopal authority, whose strengthening had been a watchword at the Council of Trent.

The categories of shepherd and hireling are conventional elements of what may be called biblical and ecclesiastical pastoral, the legacy of John’s Gospel chapter 10 and the basis of a perennial polemical dichotomy. Preaching at Manchester in 1582 on a text redolent of arable husbandry (Luke 10 v. 2—‘the harvest truly is great but the labourers are few’) the vicar of Warrington strayed out of the cornfield into this pastoral vein: ‘Wee must understand that our Savior speaketh not of false Hierlings but of true Pastoures, not of those which beare an ydle name and title of Pastoures.’ John 10 had inspired a literary motif running back to Chaucer and Langland which, in what Sir Philip Sidney called ‘the old rustic language’ of Spenser’s Shepheardes Calendar (1579), revived in the May eclogue. ‘Piers’, a good (and, according to Spenser’s commentator ‘E.K.’, protestant) pastor rebukes ‘Palinode’ (a papist, or at least a traditional clerical type) for condoning the Maytime sports of the country people, and in the person of Palinode all hirelings: Well is it seene, theyr sheepe bene not their owne,That letten them runne at randon alone.But they bene hyred for little payOf other, that caren as little as they,What fallen the flocke, so they han the fleece,And get all the gayne, paying but a peece.

Wholly new aspects have lately enriched the research of the Buda library of King Matthias Corvinus, Bibliotheca Corvina. the library – in the last years of its history – is regarded as a self-contained new entity. Research has adopted a far more complex approach than earlier, including the differentiation of the Buda scribes, the recognition of the text critical work of the humanists and of course the activity of the book-binders. Of particular importance are the new investigations of Edina Zsupán, who has managed to prove that several important Corvina manuscripts were copied in Buda. they include the ransanus codex (Budapest, OSzK, Cod.Lat.249), the Beda Venerabilis Codex (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 175), the philostratus (Budapest, OSzK, Cod. Lat. 369) and the Averulinus corvinas (Venezia, Bibioteca nazionale Marciana, Lat. VIII. 2 [-2796]), as well as the nagylucse psalter (Budapest, OSzK, Cod. Lat. 369) adapting to the corvinas in all respects. the material of the folios of each is a more roughly finished Central European parchment and the copiers could be identified on the basis of the individual features of their handwriting. However, no names can be attached to them for the time being.Unexpectedly, a datum was found in a diploma in which a certain Nicolaus, alias scriptor librorum serenissimi Mathiae regis can also be read about. the datum was found in a formularium, so the information about the missilis is defective, but the protagonists can be identified. the letter was written to archbishop cardinal tamás Bakócz who was in rome at that time (1512–1514), and the writer of the letter was probably the bishop of Gyulafehérvár Ferenc Várdai (1513–1524), who asked that in view of the merits of magister senis, he should kindly try and get a papal promissory deed for some church stipend for his frater germanus, magister Nicolaus alias scriptor librorum serenissimi Mathiae regis. this magister senis, the only person actually named in the letter, is Filippo Sergardi (philippus de Senis) (1466–1536), a cleric with lots of curial stipends born in Siena. He visited Hungary as a member of cardinal pietro Isvalies’ legation (1500–1503). He established close relations with the cardinal and archbishop of Esztergom tamás Bakócz and other Hungarians. this nicolaus was his relative, who used to be the scribe of King Matthias’ books.

King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary (1458‒1490), son of the “Scourge of the Turks,” John Hunyadi, was a foremost patron of early Renaissance art. He was only fourteen years old in 1470 when he was elected king, and his patronage naturally took some time and maturity to develop, notably through his relations with the Neapolitan Aragon dynasty. In December 1476, he married Beatrice, daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon, who brought to Buda a love of books and music she had inherited from her grandfather, Alphonse of Aragon.I studied the work of Beatrice’s brother John of Aragon (Giovanni d’Aragona), previously known mainly from Thomas Haffner’s monograph on his library (1997), from the viewpoint of his influence on Matthias’s art patronage. John was born in Naples on June 25, 1456, the third son of Ferdinand I of Aragon. His father, crowned king by Pope Pius II in 1458 following the death of Alphonse of Aragon, intended from the outset that he should pursue a church career. Ferdinand’s children, Alphonse (heir to the throne), Beatrice, and John were educated by outstanding humanist teachers, including Antonio Beccadelli (Il Panormita) and Pietro Ranzano. Through his father and the kingdom’s good relations with the papacy, John acquired many benefices, and when Pope Sixtus IV (1471‒1484) created him cardinal at the age of twenty-one, on December 10, 1477, he made a dazzling entrance to Rome. John was — together with Marco Barbo, Oliviero Carafa, and Francesco Gonzaga — one of the principal contemporary patrons of the College of Cardinals.On April 19, 1479, Sixtus IV appointed John legatus a latere, to support Matthias’s planned crusade against the Ottomans. On August 31, he departed Rome with two eminent humanists, Raffaele Maffei (also known as Volaterranus), encyclopedist and scriptor apostolicus of the Roman Curia, and Felice Feliciano, collector of ancient Roman inscriptions. John made stops in Ferrara, and Milan, and entered Buda — according to Matthias’s historian Antonio Bonfini — with great pomp. During his eight months in Hungary, he accompanied Matthias and Beatrice to Visegrád, Tata, and the Carthusian monastery of Lövöld and probably exerted a significant influence on the royal couple, particularly in the collecting of books. Matthias appointed his brother-in-law archbishop of Esztergom, the highest clerical office in Hungary, with an annual income of thirty thousand ducats.Leaving Hungary in July 1480, John returned to Rome via Venice and Florence, where, as reported by Ercole d’Este’s ambassador to Florence, Lorenzo de’ Medici showed him the most valuable works of art in his palace, and he visited San Marco and its library and the nearby Medici sculpture garden.In September 1483, Sixtus IV again appointed John legate, this time to Germany and Hungary. He took with him the Veronese physician Francesco Fontana and stayed in Buda and Esztergom between October 1483 and June 1484. The royal couple presented him with silver church vessels, a gold chalice, vestments, and a miter.John’s patronage focused on book collecting and building. He spent six thousand ducats annually on the former. Among his acquisitions were contemporary architectural treatises by Leon Battista Alberti and Filarete, which he borrowed for copying from Lorenzo’s library. They were also featured in Matthias Corvinus’s library, perhaps reflecting John’s influence. Around 1480, during his stay in Buda (approximately 1478‒1480), the excellent miniaturist, Francesco Rosselli made the first few large-format luxury codices for Matthias and Beatrice. Both Queen Beatrice and John of Aragon played a part of this by bringing with them the Aragon family’s love of books, and perhaps also a few codices. The Paduan illuminator Gaspare da Padova (active 1466‒1517), who introduced the all’antica style to Neapolitan book painting, was employed in Rome by John as well as by Francesco Gonzaga, and John’s example encouraged Matthias and Beatrice commission all’antica codices. He may also have influenced the choice of subject matter: John collected only ancient and late classical manuscripts up to 1483 and mainly theological and scholastic books thereafter; Matthias’s collection followed a similar course in which theological and scholastic works proliferated after 1485. Anthony Hobson has detected a link between Queen Beatrice’s Psalterium and the Livius codex copied for John of Aragon: both were bound by Felice Feliciano, who came to Hungary with the Cardinal. Feliciano’s probable involvement with the Erlangen Bible (in the final period of his work, probably in Buda) may therefore be an important outcome of the art-patronage connections between John and the king of Hungary.John further shared with Matthias a passion for building. He built palaces for himself in the monasteries of Montevergine and Montecassino, of which he was abbot, and made additions to the cathedral of Sant’Agata dei Goti and the villa La Conigliera in Naples. Antonio Bonfini, in his history of Hungary, highlights Matthias’s interest, which had a great impact on contemporaries; but only fragments of his monumental constructions survive.We see another link between John and Matthias in the famous goldsmith of Milan, Cristoforo Foppa (Caradosso, c. 1452‒1526/1527). Caradosso set up his workshop in John’s palace in Rome, where he began but — because of his patron’s death in autumn 1485 — was unable to finish a famous silver salt cellar that he later tried to sell. John may also have prompted Matthias to invite Caradosso to spend several months in Buda, where he made silver tableware.Further items in the metalware category are our patrons’ seal matrices. My research has uncovered two kinds of seal belonging to Giovanni d’Aragona. One, dating from 1473, is held in the archives of the Benedictine Abbey of Montecassino. It is a round seal with the arms of the House of Aragon at the centre. After being created cardinal in late 1477, he had two types of his seal. The first, simple contained only his coat of arm (MNL OL, DL 18166). The second elaborate seal matrix made in the early Renaissance style, of which seals survive in the Archivio Apostolico Vaticano (Fondo Veneto I 5752, 30 September 1479) and one or two documents in the Esztergom Primatial Archive (Cathedral Chapter Archive, Lad. 53., Fasc. 3., nr.16., 15 June 1484). At the centre of the mandorla-shaped field, sitting on a throne with balustered arm-rest and tympanum above, is the Virgin Mary (Madonna lactans type), with two supporting figures whose identification requires further research. The legend on the seal is fragmentary: (SIGILL?)VM ……….DON IOANNIS CARDINALIS (D’?) ARAGONIA; beneath it is the cardinal’s coat of arms in the form of a horse’s head (testa di cavallo) crowned with a hat. It may date from the time of Caradosso’s first presumed stay in Rome (1475‒1479), suggesting him as the maker of the matrix, a hypothesis for which as yet no further evidence is known to me. The seals of King Matthias have been thoroughly studied, and the form and use of each type have been almost fully established.John of Aragon was buried in Rome, in his titular church, in the Dominican Basilica of Santa Sabina. Johannes Burckard described the funeral procession from the palace to the Aventine in his Liber notarum. Matthias died in 1490 in his new residence, the Vienna Burg, and his body was taken in grand procession to Buda and subsequently to the basilica of Fehérvár, the traditional place of burial of Hungarian kings. The careers of both men ended prematurely: John might have become pope, and Matthias Holy Roman emperor.(The bulk of the research for this paper was made possible by my two-month Ailsa Mellon Bruce Visiting Senior Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts [CASVA] of the National Gallery of Art [Washington DC] in autumn 2019.) [fordította: Alan Campbell]

Introduction «I have never worked in the technocratic exaltation, solving a constructive problem and that’s it. I’ve always tried to interpret the space of human life» (Vittorio Garatti). Vittorio Garatti (Milan, April 6, 1927) is certainly one of the last witnesses of one “heroic” season of Italian architecture. In 1957 he graduated in architecture from the Polytechnic of Milan with a thesis proposing the redesign of a portion of the historic centre of Milan: the area between “piazza della Scala”, “via Broletto”, “via Filodrammatici” and the gardens of the former Olivetti building in via Clerici. These are the years in which Ernesto Nathan Rogers established himself as one of the main personalities of Milanese culture. Garatti endorses the criticism expressed by Rogers to the approval of the Rationalist “language” in favour of an architecture that recovers the implications of the place and of material culture. The social responsibility of architecture and connections between architecture and other forms of artistic expression are the invariants of all the activity of the architect, artist and graphic designer of Garatti. It will be Ernesto Nathan Rogers who will offer him the possibility of experiencing these “contaminations” early: in 1954, together with Giuliano Cesari, Raffaella Crespi, Giampiero Pallavicini and Ferruccio Rezzonico, he designs the preparation of the exhibition on musical instruments at the 10th Milan Triennale. The temporary installations will be a privileged area in which Garatti will continue to experiment and integrate the qualities of artist, graphic designer and architect with each other. Significant examples of this approach are the Art Schools in Cuba 1961-63, the residential complex of Cusano Milanino in 1973, the Attico Cosimo del Fante in 1980, the fittings for the Bubasty shops in 1984, the Camogli residence in 1986, his house atelier in Brera in 1988 and the interiors of the Hotel Gallia in 1989. True architecture generates itself1: an approach that was consolidated over the years of collaboration with Raúl Villanueva in Venezuela and is fulfilled in Cuba in the project of the Art Schools, where Garatti makes use of a plurality of tools that cannot be rigidly confined to the world of architecture. In 1957, in Caracas, he came into contact with Ricardo Porro and Roberto Gottardi. Ricardo Porro, who returned to Cuba in 1960, will be the one to involve Vittorio Garatti and Roberto Gottardi in the Escuelas Nacional de Arte project. The three young architects will be the protagonists of a happy season of the architecture of the Revolution, they will be crossed by that “revolutionary” energy that Ricardo Porro has defined as “magical realism”. As Garatti recalls: it was a special moment. We designed the Schools using a method developed in Venezuela. We started from an analysis of the context, understood not only as physical reality. We studied Cuban poets and painters. Wifredo Lam was a great reference. For example, Lezama Lima’s work is clearly recalled in the plan of the School of Ballet. We were pervaded by the spirit of the revolution. The contamination between knowledge and disciplines, the belief that architecture is a “parasitic” discipline are some of the themes at the centre of the conversation that follows, from which a working method that recognizes architecture as a “social transformation” task emerges, more precisely an art with a social purpose. Garatti often cites Porro’s definition of architecture: architecture is the poetic frame within which human life takes place. To Garatti architecture is a self-generating process, and as such it cannot find fulfilment within its disciplinary specificity: the disciplinary autonomy is a contradiction in terms. Architecture cannot be self-referencing, it generates itself precisely because it finds the sense of its social responsibility outside of itself. No concession to trends, to self-referencing, to the “objectification of architecture”, to its spectacularization. Garatti as Eupalino Valery shuns “mute architectures” and instead prefers singing architectures. A Dialogue of Luigi Alini with Vittorio Garatti Luigi Alini. Let’s start with some personal data. Vittorio Garatti. I was born in Milan on April 6, 1927. My friend Emilio Vedova told me that life could be considered as a sequence of encounters with people, places and facts. My sculptor grandfather played an important role in my life. I inherited the ability to perceive the dimensional quality of space, its plasticity, spatial vision from him. L.A. Your youth training took place in a dramatic phase of history of our country. Living in Milan during the war years must not have been easy. V.G. In October 1942 in Milan there was one of the most tragic bombings that the city has suffered. A bomb exploded in front of the Brera Academy, where the Dalmine offices were located. With a group of boys we went to the rooftops. We saw the city from above, with the roofs partially destroyed. I still carry this image inside me, it is part of that museum of memory that Luciano Semerani often talks about. This image probably resurfaced when I designed the ballet school. The idea of a promenade on the roofs to observe the landscape came from this. L.A. You joined the Faculty of Architecture at the Milan Polytechnic in May 1946-47. V.G. Milan and Italy were like in those years. The impact with the University was not positive, I was disappointed with the quality of the studies. L.A. You have had an intense relationship with the artists who gravitate around Brera, which you have always considered very important for your training. V.G. In 1948 I met Ilio Negri, a graphic designer. Also at Brera there was a group of artists (Morlotti, Chighine, Dova, Crippa) who frequented the Caffè Brera, known as “Bar della Titta”. Thanks to these visits I had the opportunity to broaden my knowledge. As you know, I maintain that there are life’s appointments and lightning strikes. The release of Dada magazine provided real enlightenment for me: I discovered the work of Kurt Schwitters, Theo Van Doesburg, the value of the image and three-dimensionality. L.A. You collaborated on several projects with Ilio Negri. V.G. In 1955 we created the graphics of the Lagostina brand, which was then also used for the preparation of the exhibition at the “Fiera Campionaria” in Milan. We also worked together for the Lerici steel industry. There was an extraordinary interaction with Ilio. L.A. The cultural influence of Ernesto Nathan Rogers was strong in the years you studied at the Milan Polytechnic. He influenced the cultural debate by establishing himself as one of the main personalities of the Milanese architectural scene through the activity of the BBPR studio but even more so through the direction of Domus (from ‘46 to ‘47) and Casabella Continuità (from ‘53 to ‘65). V.G. When I enrolled at the university he was not yet a full professor and he was very opposed. As you know, he coined the phrase: God created the architect, the devil created the colleague. In some ways it is a phrase that makes me rethink the words of Ernesto Che Guevara: beware of bureaucrats, because they can delay a revolution for 50 years. Rogers was the man of culture and the old “bureaucratic” apparatus feared that his entry into the University would sanction the end of their “domain”. L.A. In 1954, together with Giuliano Cesari, Raffella Crespi, Giampiero Pallavicini and Ferruccio Rezzonico, all graduating students of the Milan Polytechnic, you designed the staging of the exhibition on musical instruments at the 10th Milan Triennale. V.G. The project for the Exhibition of Musical Instruments at the Milan Triennale was commissioned by Rogers, with whom I subsequently collaborated for the preparation of the graphic part of the Castello Sforzesco Museum, together with Ilio Negri. We were given a very small budget for this project. We decided to prepare a sequence of horizontal planes hanging in a void. These tops also acted as spacers, preventing people from touching the tools. Among those exhibited there were some very valuable ones. We designed slender structures to be covered with rice paper. The solution pleased Rogers very much, who underlined the dialogue that was generated between the exhibited object and the display system. L.A. You graduated on March 14, 1957. V.G. The project theme that I developed for the thesis was the reconstruction of Piazza della Scala. While all the other classmates were doing “lecorbusierani” projects without paying much attention to the context, for my part I worked trying to have a vision of the city. I tried to bring out the specificities of that place with a vision that Ernesto Nathan Rogers had brought me to. I then found this vision of the city in the work of Giuseppe De Finetti. I tried to re-propose a vision of space and its “atmospheres”, a theme that Alberto Savinio also refers to in Listen to your heart city, from 1944. L.A. How was your work received by the thesis commission? V.G. It was judged too “formal” by Emiliano Gandolfi, but Piero Portaluppi did not express himself positively either. The project did not please. Also consider the cultural climate of the University of those years, everyone followed the international style of the CIAM. I was not very satisfied with the evaluation expressed by the commissioners, they said that the project was “Piranesian”, too baroque. The critique of culture rationalist was not appreciated. Only at IUAV was there any great cultural ferment thanks to Bruno Zevi. L.A. After graduation, you left for Venezuela. V.G. With my wife Wanda, in 1957 I joined my parents in Caracas. In Venezuela I got in touch with Paolo Gasparini, an extraordinary Italian photographer, Ricardo Porro and Roberto Gottardi, who came from Venice and had worked in Ernesto Nathan Rogers’ studio in Milan. Ricardo Porro worked in the office of Carlos Raúl Villanueva. The Cuban writer and literary critic Alejo Carpentier also lived in Caracas at that time. L.A. Carlos Raul Villanueva was one of the protagonists of Venezuelan architecture. His critical position in relation to the Modern Movement and the belief that it was necessary to find an “adaptation” to the specificities of local traditions, the characteristics of the places and the Venezuelan environment, I believe, marked your subsequent Cuban experience with the creative recovery of some elements of traditional architecture such as the portico, the patio, but also the use of traditional materials and technologies that you have masterfully reinterpreted. I think we can also add to these “themes” the connections between architecture and plastic arts. You also become a professor of Architectural Design at the Escuela de Arquitectura of the Central University of Caracas. V.G. On this academic experience I will tell you a statement by Porro that struck me very much: The important thing was not what I knew, I did not have sufficient knowledge and experience. What I could pass on to the students was above all a passion. In two years of teaching I was able to deepen, understand things better and understand how to pass them on to students. The Faculty of Architecture had recently been established and this I believe contributed to fuel the great enthusiasm that emerges from the words by Porro. Porro favoured mine and Gottardi’s entry as teachers. Keep in mind that in those years Villanueva was one of the most influential Venezuelan intellectuals and had played a leading role in the transformation of the University. Villanueva was very attentive to the involvement of art in architecture, just think of the magnificent project for the Universidad Central in Caracas, where he worked together with artists such as the sculptor Calder. I had recently graduated and found myself catapulted into academic activity. It was a strange feeling for a young architect who graduated with a minimum grade. At the University I was entrusted with the Architectural Design course. The relationships with the context, the recovery of some elements of tradition were at the centre of the interests developed with the students. Among these students I got to know the one who in the future became my chosen “brother”: Sergio Baroni. Together we designed all the services for the 23rd district that Carlos Raúl Villanueva had planned to solve the favelas problem. In these years of Venezuelan frequentation, Porro also opened the doors of Cuba to me. Through Porro I got to know the work of Josè Martì, who claimed: cult para eser libre. I also approached the work of Josè Lezama Lima, in my opinion one of the most interesting Cuban intellectuals, and the painting of Wilfredo Lam. L.A. In December 1959 the Revolution triumphed in Cuba. Ricardo Porro returned to Cuba in August 1960. You and Gottardi would join him in December and begin teaching at the Facultad de Arcuitectura. Your contribution to the training of young students took place in a moment of radical cultural change within which the task of designing the Schools was also inserted: the “new” architecture had to give concrete answers but also give “shape” to a new model of society. V.G. After the triumph of the Revolution, acts of terrorism began. At that time in the morning, I checked that they hadn’t placed a bomb under my car. Eisenhower was preparing the invasion. Life published an article on preparing for the invasion of the counterrevolutionary brigades. With Eisenhower dead, Kennedy activated the programme by imposing one condition: in conjunction with the invasion, the Cuban people would have to rise up. Shortly before the attempted invasion, the emigration, deemed temporary, of doctors, architects, university teachers etc. began. They were all convinced they would return to “liberated Cuba” a few weeks later. Their motto was: it is impossible for Americans to accept the triumph of the rebel army. As is well known, the Cuban people did not rise up. The revolutionary process continued and had no more obstacles. The fact that the bourgeois class and almost all the professionals had left Cuba put the country in a state of extreme weakness. The sensation was of great transformation taking place, it was evident. In that “revolutionary” push there was nothing celebratory. All available energies were invested in the culture. There were extraordinary initiatives, from the literacy campaign to the founding of international schools of medicine and of cinema. In Cuba it was decided to close schools for a year and to entrust elementary school children with the task of travelling around the country and teaching illiterate adults. In the morning they worked in the fields and in the evening they taught the peasants to read and write. In order to try to block this project, the counter-revolutionaries killed two children in an attempt to scare the population and the families of the literate children. There was a wave of popular indignation and the programme continued. L.A. Ricardo Porro was commissioned to design the Art Schools. Roberto Gottardi recalls that: «the wife of the Minister of Public Works, Selma Diaz, asked Porro to build the national art schools. The architecture had to be completely new and the schools, in Fidel’s words, the most beautiful in the world. All accomplished in six months. Take it or leave it! [...] it was days of rage and enthusiasm in which all areas of public life was run by an agile and imaginative spirit of warfare»2. You too remembered several times that: that architecture was born from a life experience, it incorporated enthusiasm for life and optimism for the future. V.G. The idea that generated them was to foster the cultural encounter between Africa, Asia and Latin America. A “place” for meeting and exchanging. A place where artists from all over the third world could interact freely. The realisation of the Schools was like receiving a “war assignment”. Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara selected the Country Club as the place to build a large training centre for all of Latin America. They understood that it was important to foster the Latin American union, a theme that Simón Bolivar had previously wanted to pursue. Il Ché and Fidel, returning from the Country Club, along the road leading to the centre of Havana, met Selma Diaz, architect and wife of Osmany Cienfuegos, the Cuban Construction Minister. Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara entrusted Selma Diaz with the task of designing this centre. She replied: I had just graduated, how could I deal with it? Then she adds: Riccardo Porro returned to Cuba with two Italian architects. Just think, three young architects without much experience catapulted into an assignment of this size. The choice of the place where to build the schools was a happy intuition of Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara. L.A. How did the confrontation develop? V.G. We had total freedom, but we had to respond to a functional programme defined with the heads of the schools. Five directors were appointed, one for each school. We initially thought of a citadel. A proposal that did not find acceptance among the Directors, who suggest thinking of five autonomous schools. We therefore decide to place the schools on the edge of the large park and to reuse all the pre-existing buildings. We imagined schools as “stations” to cross. The aim was to promote integration with the environment in which they were “immersed”. Schools are not closed spaces. We established, for example, that there would be no doors: when “everything was ours” there could not be a public and a private space, only the living space existed. L.A. Ricardo Porro recalled: I organised our study in the chapel of the former residence of the Serrà family in Vadado. It was a wonderful place [...]. A series of young people from the school of architecture came to help us […]. Working in that atmosphere, all night and all day was a poetic experience (Loomis , 1999). V.G. We felt like Renaissance architects. We walked around the park and discussed where to locate the schools. Imagine three young people discussing with total, unthinkable freedom. We decided that each of us would deal with one or more schools, within a global vision that was born from the comparison. I chose the Ballet School. Ivan Espin had to design the music school but in the end I did it because Ivan had health problems. Porro decided to take care of the School of Plastic Arts to support his nature as a sculptor. Gottardi had problems with the actors and directors, who could not produce a shared functional programme, which with the dancers was quite simple to produce. The reasons that led us to choose the different project themes were very simple and uncomplicated, as were those for identifying the areas. I liked hidden lands, I was interested in developing a building “embedded” in the ground. Ricardo, on the other hand, chose a hill on which arrange the school of Modern Art. Each of us chose the site almost instinctively. For the Classical Dance School, the functional programme that was provided to me was very meagre: a library, a deanery, an infirmary, three ballet classrooms, theoretical classrooms and one of choreography. We went to see the dancers while they were training and dancing with Porro. The perception was immediate that we had to think of concave and convex spaces that would welcome their movements in space. For a more organic integration with the landscape and to accommodate the orography of the area, we also decided to place the buildings in a “peripheral” position with respect to the park, a choice that allowed us not to alter the nature of the park too much but also to limit the distances to be covered from schools to homes. Selma Diaz added others to the first indications: remember that we have no iron, we have little of everything, but we have many bricks. These were the indications that came to us from the Ministry of Construction. We were also asked to design some large spaces, such as gyms. Consequently, we found ourselves faced with the need to cover large spans without being able to resort to an extensive use of reinforced concrete or wood. L.A. How was the comparison between you designers? V.G. The exchange of ideas was constant, the experiences flowed naturally from one work group to another, but each operated in total autonomy. Each design group had 5-6 students in it. In my case I was lucky enough to have Josè Mosquera among my collaborators, a brilliant modest student, a true revolutionary. The offices where we worked on the project were organised in the Club, which became our “headquarters”. We worked all night and in the morning we went to the construction site. For the solution of logistical problems and the management of the building site of the Ballet School, I was entrusted with an extraordinary bricklayer, a Maestro de Obra named Bacallao. During one of the meetings that took place daily at the construction site, Bacallao told me that in Batista’s time the architects arrived in the morning at the workplace all dressed in white and, keeping away from the construction site to avoid getting dusty, they transferred orders on what to do. In this description by we marvelled at the fact that we were in the construction site together with him to face and discuss how to solve the different problems. In this construction site the carpenters did an extraordinary job, they had considerable experience. Bacallao was fantastic, he could read the drawings and he managed the construction site in an impeccable way. We faced and solved problems and needs that the yard inevitably posed on a daily basis. One morning, for example, arriving at the construction site, I realised the impact that the building would have as a result of its total mono-materiality. I was “scared” by this effect. My eye fell on an old bathtub, inside which there were pieces of 10x10 tiles, then I said to Bacallao: we will cover the wedges between the ribs of the bovedas covering the Ballet and Choreography Theatre classrooms with the tiles. The yard also lived on decisions made directly on site. Also keep in mind that the mason teams assigned to each construction site were independent. However the experience between the groups of masons engaged in the different activities circulated, flowed. There was a constant confrontation. For the workers the involvement was total, they were building for their children. A worker who told me: I’m building the school where my son will come to study. Ricardo Porro was responsible for the whole project, he was a very cultured man. In the start-up phase of the project he took us to Trinidad, the old Spanish capital. He wanted to show us the roots of Cuban architectural culture. On this journey I was struck by the solution of fan windows, by the use of verandas, all passive devices which were entrusted with the control and optimisation of the comfort of the rooms. Porro accompanied us to those places precisely because he wanted to put the value of tradition at the centre of the discussion, he immersed us in colonial culture. L.A. It is to that “mechanism” of self-generation of the project that you have referred to on several occasions? V.G. Yes, just that. When I design, I certainly draw from that stratified “grammar of memory”, to quote Luciano Semerani, which lives within me. The project generates itself, is born and then begins to live a life of its own. A writer traces the profile and character of his characters, who gradually come to life with a life of their own. In the same way the creative process in architecture is self-generated. L.A. Some problems were solved directly on site, dialoguing with the workers. V.G. He went just like that. Many decisions were made on site as construction progressed. Design and construction proceeded contextually. The dialogue with the workers was fundamental. The creative act was self-generated and lived a life of its own, we did nothing but “accompany” a process. The construction site had a speed of execution that required the same planning speed. In the evening we worked to solve problems that the construction site posed. The drawings “aged” rapidly with respect to the speed of decisions and the progress of the work. The incredible thing about this experience is that three architects with different backgrounds come to a “unitary” project. All this was possible because we used the same materials, the same construction technique, but even more so because there was a similar interpretation of the place and its possibilities. L.A. The project of the Music School also included the construction of 96 cubicles, individual study rooms, a theatre for symphonic music and one for chamber music and Italian opera. You “articulated” the 96 cubicles along a 360-metre-long path that unfolds in the landscape providing a “dynamic” view to those who cross it. A choice consistent with the vision of the School as an open place integrated with the environment. V.G. The “Gusano” is a volume that follows the orography of the terrain. It was a common sense choice. By following the level lines I avoided digging and of course I quickly realized what was needed by distributing the volumes horizontally. Disarticulation allows the changing vision of the landscape, which changes continuously according to the movement of the user. The movements do not take place along an axis, they follow a sinuous route, a connecting path between trees and nature. The cubicles lined up along the Gusano are individual study rooms above which there are the collective test rooms. On the back of the Gusano, in the highest part of the land, I placed the theatre for symphonic music, the one for chamber music, the library, the conference rooms, the choir and administration. L.A. In 1962 the construction site stopped. V.G. In 1962 Cuba fell into a serious political and economic crisis, which is what caused the slowdown and then the abandonment of the school site. Cuba was at “war” and the country’s resources were directed towards other needs. In this affair, the architect Quintana, one of the most powerful officials in Cuba, who had always expressed his opposition to the project, contributed to the decision to suspend the construction of the schools. Here is an extract from a writing by Sergio Baroni, which I consider clarifying: «The denial of the Art Schools represented the consolidation of the new Cuban technocratic regime. The designers were accused of aristocracy and individualism and the rest of the technicians who collaborated on the project were transferred to other positions by the Ministry of Construction [...]. It was a serious mistake which one realises now, when it became evident that, with the Schools, a process of renewal of Cuban architecture was interrupted, which, with difficulty, had advanced from the years preceding the revolution and which they had extraordinarily accelerated and anchored to the new social project. On the other hand, and understandably, the adoption of easy pseudo-rationalist procedures prevailed to deal with the enormous demand for projects and constructions with the minimum of resources» (Baroni 1992). L.A. You also experienced dramatic moments in Cuba. I’m referring in particular to the insane accusation of being a CIA spy and your arrest. V.G. I wasn’t the only one arrested. The first was Jean Pierre Garnier, who remained in prison for seven days on charges of espionage. This was not a crazy accusation but one of the CIA’s plans to scare foreign technicians into leaving Cuba. Six months after Garnier, it was Heberto Padilla’s turn, an intellectual, who remained in prison for 15 days. After 6 months, it was my turn. I was arrested while leaving the Ministry of Construction, inside the bag I had the plans of the port. I told Corrieri, Baroni and Wanda not to notify the Italian Embassy, everything would be cleared up. L.A. Dear Vittorio, I thank you for the willingness and generosity with which you shared your human and professional experience. I am sure that many young students will find your “story” of great interest. V.G. At the end of our dialogue, I would like to remember my teacher: Ernesto Nathan Rogers. I’ll tell you an anecdote: in 1956 I was working on the graphics for the Castello Sforzesco Museum set up by the BBPR. Leaving the museum with Rogers, in the Rocchetta courtyard the master stopped and gives me a questioning look. Looking at the Filarete tower, he told me: we have the task of designing a skyscraper in the centre. Usually skyscrapers going up they shrink. Instead this tower has a protruding crown, maybe we too could finish our skyscraper so what do you think? I replied: beautiful! Later I thought that what Rogers evoked was a distinctive feature of our city. The characters of the cities and the masters who have consolidated them are to be respected. If there is no awareness of dialectical continuity, the city loses and gets lost. It is necessary to reconstruct the figure of the architect artist who has full awareness of his role in society. The work of architecture cannot be the result of a pure stylistic and functional choice, it must be the result of a method that takes various and multiple factors into analysis. In Cuba, for example, the musical tradition, the painting of Wilfredo Lam, whose pictorial lines are recognisable in the floor plan of the Ballet School, the literature of Lezama Lima and Alejo Carpentier and above all the Cuban Revolution were fundamental. We theorised this “total” method together with Ricardo Porro, remembering the lecture by Ernesto Nathan Rogers.

Nell’ottobre del 1921 a Milano nacque la Scuola Superiore di Arte Cristiana Beato Angelico. Responsabili dell’iniziativa: don Giuseppe Polvara, l’architetto Angelo Banfi, il pittore Vanni Rossi, affiancati dallo scultore Franco Lombardi, dai sacerdoti Adriano e Domenico Bernareggi, dall’ingegner Giovanni Dedè, dal professor Giovanni Mamone e dall’avvocato Carlo Antonio Vianello. Gli allievi del primo anno scolastico furono nove, due dei quali (gli architetti don Giacomo Bettoli e Fortunato De Angeli) destinati a restare per lunghi anni nella Scuola come docenti: così avvenne anche col pittore Ernesto Bergagna, iscrittosi l’anno seguente. A partire da quell’avvenimento il contesto italiano dell’arte sacra poté contare su un elemento di indiscutibile novità, destinato nel giro di pochi anni a una rapida, diffusa e pervicace affermazione nella Penisola. La fondazione della Scuola Beato Angelico mise un punto fermo nell’annoso dibattito sul generale declino dell’arte sacra che andava in scena da lungo tempo in Italia così come nei principali Paesi europei. La formula ideata da don Polvara metteva a sistema le proprie esperienze personali, artistiche e professionali con la conoscenza del contesto internazionale, di alcuni modelli esemplari e il confronto con gruppi e singole figure (artisti, critici, uomini di Chiesa) animate dal comune desiderio di contribuire alla rinascita dell’arte sacra. A cento anni dalla sua nascita – e a settanta dalla scomparsa del suo fondatore – la Scuola Beato Angelico (coi laboratori di Architettura, Cesello, Ricamo, Pittura e Restauro) prosegue tuttora nel compito di servire la Chiesa attraverso la realizzazione di arredi e paramenti sacri contraddistinti da una particolare cura dell’aspetto artistico e liturgico, oggetto di ripetute attestazioni di merito e riconoscimenti in ambito ecclesiastico. Ciò che invece finora manca all’appello è un organico tentativo di ricostruzione delle vicende storiche che hanno segnato la genesi e gli sviluppi di questa singolare realtà artistica e religiosa. Scopo di questa tesi è quindi la restituzione di un profilo il più possibile dettagliato e ragionato della storia della Scuola Beato Angelico, tale da riportare questa vicenda al centro di una situazione storica e di un contesto culturale complesso, attraverso una prospettiva di lavoro originale condotta sul filo delle puntualizzazioni e delle riscoperte. Stante il carattere “pionieristico” di questa ricerca, la vastità dei materiali e delle fonti a disposizione e la conseguente necessità di assegnare un taglio cronologico riconoscibile al lavoro si è optato per circoscrivere l’indagine ai decenni compresi tra il 1921 e il 1950, ovvero tra la fondazione della Beato Angelico e la scomparsa di Giuseppe Polvara. Come si vedrà, il termine iniziale viene in un certo senso anticipato dall’esigenza di tratteggiare al meglio gli antefatti e il contesto da cui trae origine la Scuola (tra la fine del XIX e i primi decenni del XX secolo). L’anno assunto a conclusione della ricerca, invece, è parso una scelta quasi obbligata, coincidente col primo avvicendamento alla direzione della Beato Angelico oltre che dalla volontà di escludere dal discorso quanto andò avviandosi negli anni Cinquanta e Sessanta, ossia una nuova e diversa stagione nel campo dell’arte sacra (destinata, tra l’altro, a passare attraverso lo snodo rappresentato dal Concilio Vaticano II e dall’azione di S. Paolo VI), peraltro assai indagata dagli studi storico-artistici. Ciò che ha reso possibile la stesura di questa tesi è il fatto che essa si appoggi, in buona parte, su materiali archivistici inediti o, quantomeno, mai esaminati prima d’ora in modo strutturato. L’accesso ai materiali d’archivio più storicizzati e la loro consultazione (grazie alla disponibilità dimostrata dalla direzione della Scuola Beato Angelico) hanno condizionato in modo determinante la trattazione degli argomenti, la ricostruzione dei quali , in alcuni casi, è sostenuta esclusivamente dai documenti rinvenuti. La nascita della Scuola Beato Angelico non fu un accadimento isolato nel panorama della produzione artistica europea del tempo né un episodio estraneo a quanto, contemporaneamente, si andava dibattendo nel mondo ecclesiastico. La Scuola di Polvara nacque in un’epoca contrassegnata da grande fermento ecclesiale: si pensi agli Ateliers d’Art Sacré fondati da Maurice Denis e George Desvallières a Parigi nel 1919, solo due anni prima della Scuola milanese, i cui aderenti – tutti laici – professavano una religiosità intensa e devota. Ma, soprattutto, il modello determinante e più conosciuto da Polvara fu la Scuola di Beuron (Beuroner Kunstschule), nata nell’omonima abazia benedettina tedesca nell’ultimo quarto del XIX secolo a opera di padre Desiderius Lenz e sul cui esempio ben presto sorsero atelier specializzati nella produzione di arte sacra (arredi e paramenti a uso liturgico) in molte comunità benedettine dell’Europa centrale. L’affinità di Polvara con la spiritualità benedettina è un elemento-chiave della Scuola da lui fondata: dalla regola dell’ora et labora derivò infatti il concetto (analogo) di “preghiera rappresentata” (orando labora). L’organizzazione stessa della Scuola, impostata come in un’ideale bottega medievale dove maestri, apprendisti e allievi collaborano e convivono, riprende lo stile di vita monastico dei cenobi benedettini. Proprio al fine di conservare il più possibile il carattere della bottega medievale, il numero degli allievi ammessi alla Scuola non fu mai troppo elevato, così da mantenere un adeguato ed efficace rapporto numerico tra i discepoli e i maestri. Ancora, da Beuron la Beato Angelico trasse la particolare e inconfondibile forma grafica della lettera “e”, riconoscibile nelle numerose e lunghe epigrafi presenti in tante sue opere. Ultimo elemento in comune tra la Scuola milanese e quella tedesca – ma che si può imputare alla più generale fascinazione per l’epoca medievale – è l’unità di intenti che deve animare tutte le maestranze impegnate a creare un’opera collettiva e anonima ad maiorem Dei gloriam, dove il contributo del singolo autore rimane volutamente nascosto in favore del nome della Scuola. Ciò che differenzia, tuttora, la Scuola da analoghi centri di produzione di arte sacra è il fatto che essa poggi le fondamenta su una congregazione religiosa, la Famiglia Beato Angelico, un’idea a lungo coltivata da Polvara e approvata ufficialmente dall’autorità diocesana fra gli anni Trenta e Quaranta. Dalla comune vocazione alla creazione artistica sacra (“missione sacerdotale” dell’artista) discendono la pratica della vita comunitaria, la partecipazione ai sacramenti e ai diversi momenti quotidiani di preghiera da parte di maestri sacerdoti, confratelli e consorelle artisti, apprendisti, allievi e allieve. L’indirizzo spirituale tracciato dal fondatore per la sua Famiglia agisce ancora oggi a garanzia di una strenua fedeltà nella continuità di un progetto artistico e liturgico unico, messo in pratica da una comunità di uomini e donne legate fra loro dai canonici voti di povertà, castità e obbedienza ma soprattutto da un comune e più alto intento. Appunto per assicurare una prospettiva di sopravvivenza e futuro sviluppo della sua creatura, Polvara ebbe sempre chiara la necessità di mantenere unito l’aspetto della formazione (e quindi la didattica nei confronti degli allievi, adolescenti e giovani) con quello della produzione (spettante all’opera di collaborazione fra maestri, apprendisti e allievi). Dal punto di vista operativo le discipline artistiche, praticate nei vari laboratori in cui si articola la Scuola, concorrono, senza alcuna eccezione e nella citata forma anonima e collettiva, a creare un prodotto artistico organico e unitario, una “opera d’arte totale” che deve rispondere all’indirizzo dato dal maestro architetto (lo stesso Polvara), cui spettano devozione, rispetto e obbedienza. Alla progettazione architettonica viene dunque assegnata grande importanza e ciò comporta che le opere meglio rappresentative della Scuola Beato Angelico siano quegli edifici sacri interamente realizzati con l’intervento dei suoi laboratori per tutte o quasi le decorazioni, gli arredi, le suppellettili e i paramenti (come le chiese milanesi di S. Maria Beltrade, S. Vito al Giambellino, SS. MM. Nabore e Felice, o la chiesa di S. Eusebio ad Agrate Brianza e la cappella dell’Istituto religioso delle figlie di S. Eusebio a Vercelli). Quanto ai linguaggi espressivi impiegati dalla Scuola (il cosiddetto “stile”) si evidenziano la preferenza per il moderno razionalismo architettonico – un tema di stringente attualità, cui Polvara non mancò di dare il suo personale contributo teorico e pratico – e quella per il divisionismo in pittura, debitrice dell’antica ammirazione per l’opera di Gaetano Previati. Dall’interazione di queste due forme si origina un riconoscibile linguaggio, moderno e spirituale al tempo stesso, verificabile negli edifici come nelle singole opere, frutto di una profonda sensibilità che combina il ponderato recupero di alcune forme del passato (ad esempio l’iconografia paleocristiana reimpiegata nei motivi decorativi dei paramenti o nella foggia di alcuni manufatti, dal calice al tabernacolo, alla pianeta-casula) con lo slancio per uno stile moderno e funzionale adeguato ai tempi ma rispettoso della tradizione.
In October 1921, the Beato Angelico Higher School of Christian Art was born in Milan. Responsible for the initiative: Don Giuseppe Polvara, the architect Angelo Banfi, the painter Vanni Rossi, flanked by the sculptor Franco Lombardi, by the priests Adriano and Domenico Bernareggi, by the engineer Giovanni Dedè, by professor Giovanni Mamone and by the lawyer Carlo Antonio Vianello . There were nine pupils in the first school year, two of whom (the architects Don Giacomo Bettoli and Fortunato De Angeli) destined to remain in the School for many years as teachers: this also happened with the painter Ernesto Bergagna, who enrolled the following year. Starting from that event, the Italian context of sacred art was able to count on an element of indisputable novelty, destined within a few years to a rapid, widespread and stubborn affirmation in the Peninsula. The foundation of the Beato Angelico School put a stop to the age-old debate on the general decline of sacred art that had been staged for a long time in Italy as well as in major European countries. The formula conceived by Don Polvara put his personal, artistic and professional experiences into a system with the knowledge of the international context, some exemplary models and the comparison with groups and individual figures (artists, critics, men of the Church) animated by the common desire to contribute to the rebirth of sacred art. One hundred years after its birth - and seventy after the death of its founder - the Beato Angelico School (with the workshops of Architecture, Cesello, Embroidery, Painting and Restoration) still continues in the task of serving the Church through the creation of distinctive sacred furnishings and vestments. from a particular care of the artistic and liturgical aspect, object of repeated attestations of merit and acknowledgments in the ecclesiastical sphere. What is missing from the appeal so far is an organic attempt to reconstruct the historical events that marked the genesis and developments of this singular artistic and religious reality. The purpose of this thesis is therefore the return of a profile as detailed and reasoned as possible of the history of the Beato Angelico School, such as to bring this story back to the center of a historical situation and a complex cultural context, through an original work perspective conducted on thread of clarifications and rediscoveries. Given the "pioneering" nature of this research, the vastness of the materials and sources available and the consequent need to assign a recognizable chronological cut to the work, it was decided to limit the survey to the decades between 1921 and 1950, or between the foundation of Beato Angelico and the death of Giuseppe Polvara. As will be seen, the initial term is in a certain sense anticipated by the need to better outline the background and context from which the School originates (between the end of the 19th and the first decades of the 20th century). The year assumed at the end of the research, on the other hand, seemed an almost obligatory choice, coinciding with the first change in the direction of Beato Angelico as well as the desire to exclude from the discussion what started in the 1950s and 1960s, that is a new and different season in the field of sacred art (destined, among other things, to pass through the junction represented by the Second Vatican Council and by the action of St. Paul VI), which is however much investigated by historical-artistic studies. What made the drafting of this thesis possible is the fact that it relies, in large part, on unpublished archival materials or, at least, never examined before in a structured way. Access to the most historicized archive materials and their consultation (thanks to the availability shown by the direction of the Beato Angelico School) have decisively conditioned the discussion of the topics, the reconstruction of which, in some cases, is supported exclusively by documents found. The birth of the Beato Angelico School was not an isolated event in the panorama of European artistic production of the time nor an episode unrelated to what was being debated in the ecclesiastical world at the same time. The Polvara School was born in an era marked by great ecclesial ferment: think of the Ateliers d'Art Sacré founded by Maurice Denis and George Desvallières in Paris in 1919, only two years before the Milanese School, whose adherents - all lay people - they professed an intense and devoted religiosity. But, above all, the decisive and best known model by Polvara was the Beuron School (Beuroner Kunstschule), born in the homonymous German Benedictine abbey in the last quarter of the nineteenth century by father Desiderius Lenz and on whose example workshops specialized in the production of sacred art (furnishings and vestments for liturgical use) in many Benedictine communities in central Europe. Polvara's affinity with Benedictine spirituality is a key element of the School he founded: in fact, the (analogous) concept of "represented prayer" (orando labora) derived from the rule of the ora et labora. The very organization of the School, set up as in an ideal medieval workshop where teachers, apprentices and pupils collaborate and coexist, takes up the monastic lifestyle of the Benedictine monasteries. Precisely in order to preserve the character of the medieval workshop as much as possible, the number of students admitted to the School was never too high, so as to maintain an adequate and effective numerical ratio between disciples and masters. Again, from Beuron Fra Angelico drew the particular and unmistakable graphic form of the letter "e", recognizable in the numerous and long epigraphs present in many of his works. The last element in common between the Milanese and the German schools - but which can be attributed to the more general fascination for the medieval era - is the unity of purpose that must animate all the workers involved in creating a collective and anonymous work ad maiorem. Dei gloriam, where the contribution of the single author remains deliberately hidden in favor of the name of the School. What still differentiates the School from similar centers of production of sacred art is the fact that it rests its foundations on a religious congregation, the Beato Angelico Family, an idea long cultivated by Polvara and officially approved by the diocesan authority between the thirties and forties. From the common vocation to sacred artistic creation (the artist's "priestly mission") descend the practice of community life, the participation in the sacraments and the various daily moments of prayer by master priests, brothers and sisters artists, apprentices, pupils and pupils . The spiritual direction traced by the founder for his family still acts today as a guarantee of a strenuous fidelity in the continuity of a unique artistic and liturgical project, put into practice by a community of men and women linked together by the canonical vows of poverty, chastity. and obedience but above all from a common and higher intent. Precisely to ensure a prospect of survival and future development of his creature, Polvara always had a clear need to keep the training aspect (and therefore the teaching for students, adolescents and young people) united with that of production (due to the work of collaboration between teachers, apprentices and students). From an operational point of view, the artistic disciplines, practiced in the various laboratories in which the School is divided, contribute, without any exception and in the aforementioned anonymous and collective form, to create an organic and unitary artistic product, a "total work of art" which must respond to the address given by the master architect (Polvara himself), to whom devotion, respect and obedience are due. The architectural design is therefore assigned great importance and this means that the best representative works of the Beato Angelico School are those sacred buildings entirely made with the intervention of its laboratories for all or almost all the decorations, furnishings, furnishings and Milanese churches of S. Maria Beltrade, S. Vito al Giambellino, S. MM. Nabore and Felice, or the church of S. Eusebio in Agrate Brianza and the chapel of the religious institute of the daughters of S. Eusebio in Vercelli). As for the expressive languages used by the School (the so-called "style"), the preference for modern architectural rationalism is highlighted - a topic of stringent topicality, to which Polvara did not fail to give his personal theoretical and practical contribution - and that for Divisionism in painting, indebted to the ancient admiration for the work of Gaetano Previati. The interaction of these two forms gives rise to a recognizable language, modern and spiritual at the same time, verifiable in the buildings as in the individual works, the result of a profound sensitivity that combines the thoughtful recovery of some forms of the past (for example early Christian iconography reused in the decorative motifs of the vestments or in the shape of some artifacts, from the chalice to the tabernacle, to the chasuble-chasuble) with the impetus for a modern and functional style appropriate to the times but respectful of tradition.

Chapter 7 explores the impact of Aristotelian rhetoric on the emotional work of preaching. Many manuscripts of Aristotle’s Rhetoric (and a good proportion of manuscripts of De regimine principum) belonged to clerical institutions; some of the most interesting responses to Aristotelian rhetoric are left to us by readers who were actively engaged in preaching. The many medieval artes praedicandi offer nothing like Aristotle’s Rhetoric in terms of teaching emotional appeal. The preachers who encountered the Rhetoric would find that it voiced the theory behind what was already lodged in their practice but which the preceptive traditions they had inherited did not articulate. It affirmed, in theoretical terms, what no medieval art of preaching articulated so systematically: the behavioral psychology of emotion and the strategies for appealing to emotions through argument. This chapter gives particular attention to three preachers who used the Rhetoric in their own practice: Thomas Eborall of London, Engelbert of Admont, and Mathias of Linköping (confessor to Birgitta of Sweden). Finally, the chapter explores the impact of the Rhetoric on an anonymous fifteenth-century pastoral reader who composed a short English verse on “Piers the Plowman” which he left in a copy of Aristotle’s Rhetoric next to the section on amicitia; it considers how this preacher brought together the emotional concerns of English poetry (the broad Piers Plowman phenomenon) and the theory of emotion in the Rhetoric.