"Il passeggiere disingannato ed instrutto": the cosmopolitan image of Bologna between the 16th and 17th centuries

CYCLE: Traveling in Italy between the 16th and 17th Centuries: maps and guides to discover works, artists and collections
SPEAKER: Angelo Mazza
DATE: Tuesday, November 11, 6:00 PM
LOCATION: Bibliotheca Maior - Sala della Crociera

Bologna is not merely a stopover for travelers from the North on their way to Rome; it is also a destination for students of various nationalities drawn by the prestige of its university, and for young artists seeking to apprentice in the workshops of the most celebrated painters. Among these was the studio of Guido Reni, where, as Carlo Cesare Malvasia wrote, every language in Europe could be heard. By the middle of the century, religious authority redesigned the symbolic sites of power with the opening of Piazza del Nettuno and the founding of the Archiginnasio to oversee the control of knowledge. During the years of the Bolognese Pope Gregory XIII, cartography flourished thanks to Ignazio Danti. Travelers moved from the museum of naturalia and artificialia of the naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi to that of the painter Bartolomeo Passerotti, just as in the mid-17th century they gained access to the Museo Cospiano. At the height of the Baroque era, in 1686, Carlo Cesare Malvasia published Le pitture di Bologna, a pocket-sized volume which, through its various editions, would accompany travelers in the city until the twilight of the Ancien Régime.

Angelo Mazza holds a degree in Philosophy with a specialization in Art History and was a recipient of a research fellowship at the Roberto Longhi Foundation in Florence. He has held positions at the Civic Museums of Bologna and the Superintendency of Modena and Reggio Emilia, where he directed numerous restoration projects. He has served as a contract professor at the University of Parma and currently holds the position of Curator of the Art and History Collections of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio in Bologna. He is the author of extensive critical contributions on Emilian painting from the 16th to the 18th century.

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