The Palazzo Cini Gallery at San Vio: a collector’s home
By Luca Massimo barbero
On 21 September 1984 the Fondazione Giorgio Cini opened up some rooms to the public in the
Palazzo Cini on the Grand Canal. Vittorio Cini’s Venetian home since 1919, the palace had been
constructed by joining up two former noble residences belonging to the Foscari and Grimani
families. The rooms were open to the public to show the valuable collection of paintings,
sculptures and objets d’art presented to the Foundation in 1981 by Cini’s third daughter, Yana
Cini, who had become a princess on marrying Prince Fabrizio Alliata di Montereale. The creation
of the gallery in the Palazzo Cini came seven years after Vittorio Cini’s death. A treasure trove of
refined, marvels conceived as a museum-house, the gallery provides fascinating insight into the
taste and culture that are the filigree expressions of the “art passions” of a major 20th-century
Italian collector.
The legacy was a microcosm that directly represented – at least according to the intentions of the
project curators – the multifaceted universe of the collector and aesthete Vittorio Cini. The Alliata
di Montereale donation is particular emblematic of Cini’s love for the painting of the so-called
“Italian Primitives”, which was fuelled and constantly stimulated by exceptional advisers and
arbiters, such as Bernard Berenson or Federico Zeri. The donation made it possible to conceive
and design the gallery, which is still unique on the Venice art scene and only a stone’s throw from
the Gallerie dell’Accademia.
The unique nature of the collection was also due to the presence of a very highly selected group of
Renaissance Ferrara paintings, which entered the gallery in 1989 through a long-sighted act of
cultural patronage by another member of the Cini family. In 1989 Yana’s twin, Ylda Cini Guglielmi
di Vulci, decided to make a permanent loan to the gallery of masterpieces by Tura, De Roberti,
Dossi and Mazzolino, once in her father’s collection. This ensured that a fundamental section of
the original collection could also go on show, thus allowing visitors to understand more fully the
collector’s taste and his love for the art of his native city, Ferrara.
Further legacies and permanent loans over the years (for example, the collection of French ivories,
including some remarkable high-quality 13th-century pieces) are evidence that the Cini heirs took a
constant interest in the museum-house and in the Foundation, often also offering financial
support for the maintenance and restoration of the art works.
In concomitance with the thirtieth anniversary of the inauguration of the rooms in the Palazzo
Cini, the gallery will open its doors again for scholars and visitors on 24 May 2014. The gallery still
has the same – now historical – configuration as when it was conceived and intelligently laid out
with the crucial support of Zeri: it is as if the rooms were still inhabited by the patron and his two
spouses, the actress Lyda Borelli, the classic Italian “silent diva”, and the Marchioness Maria
Cristina Dal Pozzo D’Annone, his second wife, whom he married in 1967. The original principles
underlying the gallery design aimed to create Venetian patrician-style pomp. The highly varied
nature of the art objects – the specific binding characteristic of the whole collection – is also the
dominant feature in the works on show in the gallery. The paintings, sculptures, furniture, ivories,
porcelain, cassoni, and rugs reflect Cini’s omnivorous voracity for the finest examples of human
creativity and ancient art, especially in the Humanist tradition.
His constant attention and love for the antique generated one of the most wideranging systematic
collections of its kind in 20th-century Italy, whereas the variety of his cultural interests, from
cinema to theatre, music and history, prepared the ground for his philanthropist patronage in the
second postwar period and the creation in 1951 of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini. A centre for
research, study and education with the accent on a multidisciplinary international identity, the
Foundation was created by Vittorio Cini as a tribute to the memory of his first-born son.
Vittorio Cini as collector: an “Italian Faust”
Vittorio Cini (Ferrara 1885- Venice 1977) was an entrepreneur, manufacturer, ship-owner and
politician involved in the most important financial and productive undertakings characterising the
development of Italy from rural to advanced industrial country. He cultivated art interests and
indefatigably put together collections. His earliest acquisitions were made at the beginning of the
century but then their number rose considerably in the postwar period. The collections were
installed in a castle at Monselice and the Palazzo Cini, Venice. They reflect perfectly his
personality, marked by a special attraction for antique art, which he pursed with the same kind of
passion as a “Renaissance prince”. Funded by substantial economic resources, his collecting
involved key figures in the history of antiquarianism, such as Salocchi and Volterra, and eminent
specialists – expert art historians, such as Zeri and Berenson, or Giuseppe Fiocco and Tammaro
De Marinis.
Cini’s passion for collecting drove him to the “Faustian undertaking” (as Bernard Berenson
comments in his diaries, Cini was “the only Italian Faust I have ever met”) of creating a
microcosm to represent all the artistic and craft forms of Western civilisation of the past. In this
he pursued an idea of the “total” collection along historicist lines, and was strongly influenced by
regular advice from the critic Nino Barbantini, the great organiser of exhibitions at Ca’ Pesaro in
Venice from 1908 and curator of the memorable exhibition on Renaissance Ferrara at the Palazzo
dei Diamanti in 1933. This event also occasioned the publication of Roberto Longhi’s masterpiece
Officina ferrarese (1934) and the rediscovery in both academic studies and collecting of the art from
the Este period, which Vittorio Cini was clearly also attracted to, given the presence of paintings
by the principal 15th- and 16th-century Ferrara artists in his collection. In 1935 Cini turned to
Barbantini for the renovation of the recently acquired Ca’ Marcello, the castle at Monselice. The
aim was to make this building his preferred home, a dwelling of delights and pleasures, full of
“Estense memories”, in which Cini’s collecting passion could be expressed best, in a perfect
historicised container with an almost obsessive attention to the decorative arts. Cini’s choice of
Nino Barbantini – he was also to become the first president of the Fondazione Cini in 1951 –
reveals his lucid and modern outlook when selecting his cultural reference points.
The Palazzo Cini: from residence to gallery
The Palazzo Cini Gallery was different in taste from Ca’ Marcello, as is revealed by the period
photographs documenting the new exhibition layout in the second half of the 1950s. Modelled on
criteria of noble decor and inspired by a sober elegance reflecting an upper middle-class model,
which made Cini akin to the other great 20th-century collectors, such as Angelo Costa, Luigi
Magnani and Riccardo Gualino, the rooms in the residence on the Grand Canal strike a fine
balance between the functional requirements of everyday living and the need to showcase the rich
collection of paintings through subtle stage settings.
Here there was none of the overload of decoration and objects shaping the interiors of the castle.
The aim was for more rarefied presences, in line with the new museum theories: an antique-style
atmosphere created by the wallpapers and damask tapestries (alluding to 17th-century galleries)
highlights the lucid language of the items chosen for the walls, cleverly avoiding any double rows.
In addition to the paintings, arranged according to principles of harmonious proportions and fixed
to the walls by means of chords that give the striking effect of suspension, the furniture is set out
sparingly, with some antique pieces, such as 18th-century consoles with intaglios, Renaissance
cassoni in gilded pastiglia or with wooden inlays, placed beside modern sofas and armchairs. As
regards the decorative arts, the dominant elements are, on one hand, the porcelain, including many
Oriental pieces and, on the other, silver and glass objects which through reflections and
transparency play with the light in the rooms, thus making the various material shapes more
dynamic. Murano glass chandeliers and Persian and Anatolian rugs further enhance the feeling of
sumptuousness.
The rooms in the palace were modelled thanks to the design of a leading architect of the day, who
responded carefully to the principle of a “period” setting, which was the hallmark of the Cini
residences. The architect in question was the great Valtellinese designer Tommaso Buzzi
(Sondrio, 1900 - Rapallo, 1981). Buzzi was very active and had a broad aristocratic and
uppermiddle class clientele. He designed renovation and interior decoration projects for their
palaces and villas (to mention but a few: Volpi di Misurata, Papadopoli, De Lazara Pisani, Contini
Bonacossi and Visconti di Modrone). Buzzi worked for Cini on several occasions, offering his
creative flair as early as 1938 when he was responsible for the restoration of the castle at
Monselice: he designed hanging gardens, open-air staircases, terraces and ponds that looked to the
tradition of the Venetian villa and in which we already begin to see what was to become the
architect’s neo-Mannerist style. Cini’s relations with Buzzi grew even more intense in the following
decades with the renovation of numerous residences, such as the villas in Rimini and Taormina,
for which Buzzi also designed the furnishing. The architect began renovations on the palazzo at
San Vio in the 1940s but it was from 1956 to 1958 that he made a crucial contribution through the
creation of the delightful neo-Rococo oval room, which occupies the area of the demolished
stairway up to the piano nobile, and the addition of a oval spiral staircase to this building
previously owned by the Grimani, Caldogno and Valmarana families. The idea for the style of the
small oval living room, with its delicate white vegetable-motif stuccoes adorning the ceiling (made
by Giuseppe Boccanegra, like those in other rooms in the palace) came from the stunning hardpaste porcelain tableware kept in the room. The tableware was made by the Venetian
manufacturers Cozzi between 1785 and 1795. The fleshy scrolls of the sauceboats and cream
bowls and the floral motifs decorating the plates, cachepots and glassware provided the decorative
guidelines from modelling, white on white, the corner cupboards and the mouldings of the plate
racks. This minor masterpiece of a museum design in a period style is a good example of Buzzi’s
genius and flair as an interior designer.
On Vittorio Cini’s death in 1977, the enormous overall collection was divided up between the
heirs, after groups were created according to criteria of geographical areas and schools. A few
years later Yana Cini Alliata di Montereale made her donation and at the same time ceded part of
the family palace. This far-sighted action guaranteed the possibility of preserving the indissoluble
bond between the works and their setting and led to the opening of the gallery in 1984. The
criteria for exhibiting the works on the piano nobile of the Palazzo Cini complied with the principles
that had guided Buzzi and Vittorio Cini in the interior design in the 1950s. The paintings,
sculptures and art objects were thus arranged according to a language carefully reflecting that taste.
Inside the gallery
The collection rooms are entered from Piscina del Forner, on Rio San Vio, which affords a view
out towards the Giudecca. You are immediately captivated by the discrete charm of the rooms in
the gallery. In this age of semiotic overload and communicational mishmashes the gallery emanates
a crystal clear message of taste and passion for the antique, which has preserved its design intact.
In the first room, the deeply moving 13th-century processional cross attributed to Giunta Pisano
(and more recently to the master of Santa Maria Primerana) is painted on both sides with the
double image of Christus Patiens and Christus Triumphans. Of the type used in the mendicant spiritual
world, this cross is the first in an iconographic series of crucifixions, including the stunning
devotional crucifixion by the 15th-century Sienese artist Pietro di Giovanni Ambrosi. A
perspicacious interpreter of Sassetta, he was an exponent of that “umbratical Renaissance”, which
tempered the masses of the Masaccian tradition with courtly niceties. After having admired the
series of French ivories, four bone artefacts with wooden inlays made by the workshop of the
Embriachi, two portable triptych altarpieces and two nuptial jewel cases (capsae), the visitor’s
attention is attracted to the impressive group of Renaissance enamelled copper objects of Venetian
manufacture, second for quality and quantity only to the collection in the Louvre: the bowls, plates
for special occasions, mirror and table candlesticks all have enamel and gilt decoration. They testify
to a great interest in a workshop which seems to have been active for two generations at most,
providing table decorations, paci, reliquaries and frames. Incidentally, the copper items will be the
subject of an important international conference at the end of the year, promoted in collaboration
with the Musee du Louvre, Paris. These splendid honeycomb enamelled copper objects with drop,
raceme and small leaf textures dialogue in the same showcase with a 13th-century Limousin
champleve pyx bearing the owner’s crest.
The most striking works in the second room are the “Primitive Tuscans”, and especially two
Maestà (Enthroned Virgin and Child), which highlight affinities and differences between the
Giottesque and Ducciesque traditions in early 14th-century Tuscany, represented, on one hand, by
the Master of the Horne Triptych, recently identified as Gaddo Gaddi and, on the other, by the
Master of the Badia a Isola, a follower of the great Sienese artist. Other works in the showcase
include: a fine early 13th-century painting of the Virgin and Child by the Master of the Bigallo
Crucifix; a Giottesque fragment with Two Apostles, comparable in style to the Stefaneschi Polyptych;
two panels by Taddeo Gaddi (mid-14th century) from the predella of a dismantled polyptych; some
Daddesque works of private devotion; a beautiful panel by Guariento, once part of one of his early
polyptychs. There is also a wonderful 14th-century polychrome sculpture. This work with Tuscan
elements is an austere Virgin and Child, in which the Classical-like gravitas is combined with French
influences.
The large luminous Polyptych Room opens out into Buzzi’s salotto, in which Cozzi’s fine
porcelain
pieces are sumptuously laid out. The room takes its name from two perfectly preserved intact
polyptychs. The first is a work by an artist in the circle of Orcagna (the commission documents
refer to the painter as “Francesco”). Characterised by smooth colours and intricate punchwork, it
was originally in the church of Santa Caterina in Pisa. The second polyptych is by Lorenzo di
Niccolo (1404) on which it has been realized a delicate restoration operation. It is a perfect
example of early 15th-century neo-Giottism, expressed in the rhythmic compositions established
by Lorenzo’s father, Niccolo di Pietro Gerini. The room also has an interesting series of examples
of the Sienese Quattrocento (from Sassetta to the Master of the Osservanza Triptych, Vecchietta
and Matteo di Giovanni) and a solitary panel from a polyptych with Six Saints. Other pieces of this
work associated with the Master of the Silver Crucifix are in the Musee Fesch, Ajaccio and
Switzerland.
The fourth room features the great masterpieces in the collection: a wood panel of the Virgin and
Child with Saints and Musician Angels by Filippo Lippi, which, from around the time of the Madonna
of Tarquinia, translates into painting Brunelleschi’s perspective and architectural ideas; a small panel
with Saint Thomas Aquinas by Beato Angelico from a dismantled high altar in the Dominican
church of San Marco in Florence (1438-1443); the stunning Madonna and Child with Two Angels by
Piero di Cosimo (c. 1507 ), still in excellent condition, in which the Leonardesque hints (from the
Leda) are combined with reflections on Raphael’s compositional textures in his Florentine works,
especially the Canigiani Madonna; a Virgin and Child, attributed by some to Piero della Francesca and
by others to Luca Signorelli; a large panel with the Judgement of Paris by Botticelli and his workshop
from the 1580s, with particularly fine details, such as the urban views and a lively dog seen from
behind; an exquisitely made small wooden panel of a Madonna and Child with Angels, attributed to
the circle of the Ghirlandaio (possibly Mainardi), on the grounds of the delicate, gilded embroidery
of the cushion and the billowing clouds, rendered with very fine brushwork.
Starting from July 20th (since up then it is possible admire the sublime Young Man with a Lute by
Bronzino) in this room we also find a timeless masterpiece, arguably the greatest gem in the whole
collection: the Portrait of Two Friends by Jacopo Pontormo (c. 1522 ),. The splendid material texture
of this work is heightened by transparent lacquers, the dark tones of the drapery and the
background, highlighting the flesh, rendered with very thin pastes for the varnishing and the white
borders of the blouses. A key role in the painting is played by a missive, which one of the
characters, the nephew of the Florentine glass-maker Becuccio Bicchierai, holds in his hand while
pointing to a passage from Cicero’s De amicitia, setting the seal on the philia for the Humanities.
This painting is a crucial work in 16th-century portraiture on the grounds of the acute
psychological characterisation and a subtle sense of anxiety.
The gallery itinerary ends with the room devoted to Ferrara painting and some representative
masterpieces from the period of the Este court, such as the highly strung, electrifying Saint George
by Cosme Tura, painted with the care of a miniaturist. It was once part of the Colonna Altarpiece, a
late work in the artist’s production, close to the stories of San Maurelio in Ferrara. In the same
room three small panels by Ercole de’ Roberti, once part of the now dismantled Floriano Griffoni
altarpiece, were made by a young Ercole working alongside the elderly Francesco del Cossa
between 1470 and 1473 for the Griffoni family chapel (granted in giuspatronato) in the church of
San Petronio in Bologna. The Portrait of Tito Vespasiano Strozzi by Baldassarre d’Este, on the other
hand, is modelled on all’antica medals produced to meet an antiquarian taste, of which the artist
was a well-known exponent. Three very fine panels by Ludovico Mazzolino, from different
stylistic phases, include the moving Pietà, based on a model by Ercole de’ Roberti and permeated
by an expressionistic pathos derived from Turi.
The last great work from the Estense age is the celebrated Allegorical Scene by Dosso Dossi, which
still awaits a convincing iconographic interpretation. Once part of the ceiling in Alfonso I d’Este’s
bedroom in the Via Coperta of the Ducal Palace in Ferrara, it can be dated to the mid-1620s. This
Dossesque rebus constructed with musical symbols and humanistic emblems further enhances the
considerable fascination of the Cini collection.
Luca Massimo Barbero
Director of the Institute of Art History of Fondazione Giorgio Cini