It is a celebration that involves 360 cities and 20 regions in a pyrotechnic succession of visits to 700 places and cultural assets that are usually inaccessible or undervalued. A meeting opportunity which, every year, involves hundreds of thousands of Italians, “invited” by FAI to the traditional “Autumn Days”: historic buildings, villas, castles, churches, examples of industrial archaeology, libraries, collections of art, naturalistic areas, urban parks, botanical gardens and secular gardens, but also 12 universities and research centres.
This carousel which in some way draws the face of Italy and will be held on 14 and 15 October moves in two parallel yet complementary directions: aesthetic joy in the admiration of Beauty and the need – underlined by the president of the Foundation, Marco Magnifico , in the presentation of the event at the Sapienza University of Rome – «to return to entrusting schools and universities with a foundational role for what concerns the quality of the country’s future». A love for the wonders that our land is rich in that can also become, in short, a school and discipline.
Citing Ernesto Galli della Loggia, Magnifico recalled again that history is a great and precious deposit of social knowledge: and, thus, «without history politics is blind and history that renounces politics is destined to lose its identity» .
The proposals offered for this twelfth edition of the Autumn Days are a dizzying treasure that will be illustrated to the public with the help of 9 thousand «Ciceroni apprentices». In Rome, for example, the Capitoline Historical Archive opens its doors in the monumental complex of the Oratory of the Filippini designed by Borromini. And, again in the capital, in an opening reserved only for Fai members, some collections of the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti will be revealed with works by artists such as Capogrossi and Vedova. Milan showcases two jewels: the Bank of Italy building and Palazzo Diotti, seat of the Prefecture, while Bergamo displays a true anthology of fourteenth-century painting with works from the former complex of Sant’Agostino, now home to the University .
In Turin you will be able to admire the heart of Palazzo Civico, the historic seat of the Town Hall, but also the former Colongo wool mill, an early twentieth century industrial structure which houses the Experimental Cinematography Center and the Turin Piedmont Film Commission, taking the opportunity to access the Hall Casting and set design workshops. To remain in Piedmont, in Ivrea, here is the Church of San Bernardino, already used by Camillo Olivetti as a private studio, with the extraordinary Renaissance rood screen by Spanzotti.
Another gem that is offered to visitors for the first time, the Bardassano Castle in Gassino, an imposing structure, splendidly preserved and cared for, owned by the Giriodi Panissera counts.
The visit to the two headquarters of the Red Cross in Florence is also an “absolute first”: one on the banks of the Lungarno, the other with a suggestive view of the Careggi hill and, today, home to the CRI military museum. Genoa, among other things, will allow the public to go behind the scenes of the historic Gustavo Modena theater and discover how a stage machine moves. Another exceptional opening of the Bank of Italy which will open up the rooms of the Bologna headquarters on the same days in which the wonders of Palazzo Malvezzi de’ Medici which houses the Metropolitan City will be accessible.
As part of this edition of the Autumn Days which will see such a large number of universities open to the public, Trieste will inaugurate the celebrations of one hundred years since the foundation of the University, strongly supported by the Italian community and the subject of student protests under the Austro-Hungarian, with a visit to the headquarters located on the slopes of Mount Valerio.
The journey in Italy continues along curious or astonishing stages. Resplendent residences such as Villa Ita in Matera, with its native plants, or Villa Severi, in Pesaro, set in a 10 thousand square meter park, with its admirable collection of twentieth-century statues and paintings. A collection of unique pieces scattered outdoors or kept in the silence of the interiors which, as in a sort of mirror of wonders, characterizes another building: Sebastian Matta’s Bandita in Matera. In this former eighteenth-century convent the Chilean artist who had chosen it as his “buen retiro” left ceramics, canvases, pastels, drawings and furniture, the result of a visionary inspiration.
From art to architecture. The lines that distinguish one of the most celebrated projects of post-modernism are surprising: the Parabita Cemetery in the province of Lecce created by Alessandro Anselmi and Paola Chiatante in 1967. And the interventions that regenerated the ancient factory are impressive but respectful of the original building Tabacchi di Rovereto now an incubator for start-ups in the sustainable construction and renewable energy sectors.
A separate chapter, the ancient villages. From Anversa degli Abruzzi which was a source of inspiration for writers and artists such as Torquato Tasso, Edward Lear and Cornelius Escher to Nozzano, on the hills of Lucca, with its crenellated keep, from Montenero Sabino which, due to its shape, resembles a galleon built at 450 meters above sea level in Vezzano Ligure (La Spezia) which has a practically intact medieval urban fabric, up to Arrone, in the province of Trento, second place in 2019 among «The most beautiful villages in Italy» with its sixteenth-century churches. On Sunday 15 October the Autumn Festival will be celebrated with an extraordinary performance by its famous bell ringers.