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[159] Nuova Serie 1 | 2023Storia dell’arte n. 159
Nuova Serie 1 | 2023
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Giada Policicchio
Roberto Longhi e Angelo Cecconi in dialogo su Mattia Preti (1913). Connoisseurship, collezionismo e mostre d’arte
This essay traces the critical life of the Calabrian painter Mattia Preti and seventeenth-century Neapolitan painting through the hitherto unpublished correspondence in 1913 between the young art historian Roberto Longhi and the collector Angelo Cecconi. Currently housed in the collections of the University of Pavia and the Foundation Roberto Longhi in Florence, these letters promise to expand our understanding of the history of collecting and the Italian market in the early 20th century. On the one hand, this study places the early and multifaceted activities of Longhi as art advisor and connoisseur within the contemporary antiquarian milieu, and on the other hand, it considers the fundamental role assumed by Angelo Cecconi as a critic and collector of 17th century Neapolitan paintings in Florence. With a view to re-evaluating the until-then-neglected 17th century within their modern national and international cultural context, the two connoisseurs set out to rediscover Mattia Preti through exchanges of letters, essays, articles and the purchase of works of art. On the occasion of the centenary of the artist’s birth, the “Preti Exhibition,” inaugurated in Catanzaro and curated by Alfonso Frangipane, also contributed decisively to the promotion of the artist in future studies.