The presentation event for the new book by Professor Daniele Fraccaro was held on Friday, 10 October in the Public Hall, on the first floor of the Bank of Italy building in Piazza Cavour in Bologna. Its title is Il Portico dei Misteri. Le grottesche del portico Bolognese della Banca d’Italia.Literally:The Portico of Mysteries. The Grotesques of the Bolognese Portico of the Bank of Italy.
Published by the Bank of Italy, it utilises the iconographic set of photographs by Vanessa Wellington that document the singular richness of this portico, undoubtedly the most decorated of all those in Bologna.
The building, whose exteriors are now undergoing major restoration, is the work of Antonio Cipolla who, in 1862, took on the task of giving a monumental appearance to the State Bank of the new united Italy. He applied a dignified Neo-Renaissance style, fully adequate for the role played by the building. The series of painted images under the porticoes that line Piazza Cavour and Via Farini, which are the subject of the publication, is the work of Gaetano Lodi, who was born in Crevalcore in 1830.
Entrusted with the task of decoration in 1862, the painter chose the grotesque genre, which was dear to Raphael Sanzio, and therefore in the full spirit of Renaissance revival.
The panels and elements are not merely decorative, but are the subject of a complex iconographic programme that until now had put a great strain on scholars.
Before becoming professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, Daniele Fraccaro had long been a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, and produced several publications on Bologna's Porticoes when they were entered on the UNESCO World Heritage List. An informed scholar and effective communicator, he succeeded – as the book shows and his words reveal – in finally unveiling the meaning behind the subjects painted by Lodi, down to the finest details. It is now evident that both client and artist intended, in an erudite and imaginative way, to celebrate the new nation, its history, and its outstanding features.
Before Daniele Fraccaro’s contribution, greetings and congratulations on the results achieved were offered by Pietro Raffa, director of the Bologna Branch of the Bank of Italy; Lorenzo Sperati, Head of the Property Service of the Bank of Italy; Francesca Tomba, architect and Superintendent of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape of Bologna; Councillor Anna Lisa Boni; and Professor Pietro Acri, FAI delegate of Bologna.
The rich programme was concluded by Marina Mazzoni, architect, of the Bank of Italy and Chiara Zanghieri, architect of the design company Politecnica Ingegneria e Architettura. The latter showed the restorers’ work on the masonry and painted surfaces, revealing that Gaetano Lodi did not paint “a fresco” onto wet plaster, but onto already dried plaster, thus exposing his work, unfortunately, to early deterioration.
