The «Raccolta Alberto della Ragione»: an extraordinary museum

A naval engineer who specialized in the recovery of sunk ships, Alberto della Ragione was born in Piano di Sorrento in 1892 to a middle class family . He died in Genova, where he lived for the majority of his life, in 1973.
People who knew him, remember that he started to collect contemporary art from the end of the 20’s, making an effort to understand the new language of painting and sculpture.
After selling some Nineteenth Century paintings to the Vittorio Barbaroux «Milan Gallery», della Ragione obtained 52 paintings by de Pisis, 17 by Carrà, 17 by Morandi, 14 by Campigli, 47 by Sironi. In 1938, Barbaroux sold him the self portrait of Amedeo Modigliani, a painting which was owned by Riccardo Gualino. Alberto della Ragione payed 105.000 Italian liras for the self portrait, preferring this to the purchase of a flat.
In 1941 his care towards art was rewarded with the medal of «Benemerito delle Arti», and then by his winning of the first prize at the «I Mostra delle Collezioni d’Arte Contemporanea (1st Exhibition of Contemporary Art Collections)» in Cortina d’Ampezzo, where his collection was exhibited.
In the same year the engineer bought the Milanese seat of the «Bottega di Corrente», which had been closed by the fascist regime for the libertarian attitude of the artists and the intellectuals who worked there. The new gallery, called «La Spiga», became one of the most active avant-garde centres in Italy.
Alberto della Ragione showed his engagement with the artists even in the most difficult moments of the 2nd World War.
He gave hospitality in his house to Renato Birolli, who left him some of his most interesting paintings (now exhibited in room XVIII). He did the same thing for Renato Guttuso, who left him several paintings (room XVI), among which the famous «Crocifissione» (1941), which is now showed at the National Gallery of Contemporary Art in Rome.
The same thing occurred with the Jew Antonietta Raphael («Ritratto della signora della Ragione Madre», 1945 ca., room V) and with Mario Mafai (rooms IV and V). Alberto della Ragione also protected Santomaso, Chiti and Vedova (rooms XIII and XVII).
In 1969 more than 200 works of his collection were given as a gift to the city of Florence, thanks to to the mediation of Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti, who wanted to constitute the International Museum of Contemporary Art.
Della Ragione justified the donation, «born from a life of intense passion» as a «declaration of love for Florence, tremendously hurt by the flood of 1966, and an act of adhesion to the efforts made to give back to the city the role of “capital of art”» (from «Il Secolo XIX», Genova, 12/12/1969).
On 13th May 1970 the collection was opened to the public, and remains the central core of the Nineteenth Century Italian Art Collection.
The museum is located in Palazzo Bombicci, in Piazza della Signoria; the premises are arranged by the most important Florentine bank, the «Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze». The rooms show the different iconographic and stylistic currents: from the «return to order» of Valori Plastici (Plastic Values) and Novecento (Twentieth Century) and the group of the Italians in Paris, from the Scuola Romana (School of Rome) to Corrente, until the experiences of the 50’s.
The municipality of Florence is trying to arrange a new larger location in the ancient convent «Convento delle suore oblate francescane di Santa Maria Nuova», situated on the centrally-located via Sant’Egidio.


Paola Cammeo

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