Giuseppe Gerola

Giuseppe Gerola
at the beginning of the 20th century

Giuseppe Gerola (completely Giuseppe Lorenzo Luigi Filippo Antonio Maria Gerola , born April 2, 1877 in Arsiero , † September 21, 1938 in Trento ) was an Italian art historian , archaeologist and monument conservator .

Live and act

Childhood and academic years

Gerola's parents - Domenico Gerola and Augusta Cofler - came from Rovereto, then part of Austria-Hungary . His parents both openly sympathized with the newly founded Kingdom of Italy and were forced to emigrate to Veneto due to their political stance . The family was only able to return to Rovereto in 1882 after the two states had come closer together as a result of the Triple Alliance.

Gerola attended the grammar school in Rovereto, but was forced to change schools after a short time, as the grammar school was closed by the authorities because of the dissemination of irredentist ideas. He finally passed his Abitur in 1894 in Italy at the Lyceum in Desenzano .

He then enrolled at the Faculty of Literature at the University of Padua , but moved a year later to the University of Florence , which he graduated in 1898 with the Laurea in Medieval History and a Diploma in Paleography from the paleographer Cesare Paoli (1840-1902). During his studies he met Cesare Battisti , for whose magazine Tridentum he published his first scientific articles on Trentino .

Between 1898 and 1899 he stayed in Germany for further studies. There Gerola heard lectures from Paul Scheffer-Boichorst in Berlin and from the medievalist Heinrich Finke in Freiburg . In particular, the studies in Freiburg influenced Gerolas further scientific direction. He became increasingly interested in art history and architecture .

Research trips to the Aegean

The Great Gate in Rethymno ,
photographed by Giuseppe Gerola in 1902

At the beginning of 1900 Gerola - at the suggestion of Federico Halbherr from the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti - traveled to Crete and, with a short break in winter 1901, collected traces of the Venetian rule on the island through detailed archaeological work until July 1902 lasted from 1204 to 1669. Gerola and Halbherr were supposed to document these traces, because due to the uncertain political situation of the island, Crete was an international protectorate after the end of the Turkish-Greek War in 1898 , in order to preserve these Venetian-Italian certificates. Despite the restriction to focus on the Venetian era, Gerola did not ignore traces of other eras in his work on Crete.

Between 1905 and 1932 he prepared the material, including 1,600 photographs he had taken himself, from this meticulous archaeological field research and published it in four extensive volumes. In 1910 and 1912 Gerola was able to continue his research on medieval buildings in Greece. In 1910 he was accompanied by his wife on the three Cycladic islands Serifos , Keros and Kythnos . In 1912, after the Italo-Turkish War and the Italian occupation of the Aegean Islands , he traveled to the southern Sporades and Rhodes . From Rhodes he also visited the other surrounding islands. As ten years earlier, he did not only focus on medieval buildings, but was open to anything that aroused his scientific interest. He later published the results of his research trip in 1912 in numerous publications.

In his field research, Gerola used modern research standards for his time, so he systematically, almost pedantically , collected data, made sketches and took numerous photographs. Methods that were not generally used until the 1930s. Gerola's work on Greek culture from the Middle Ages to the Turkish occupation is still considered fundamental. During his research trips to the Aegean Sea, he also began to deal with Byzantine architecture , which was to be a central theme of his further work and publications.

Museum director and curator

From 1903 to 1906 Gerola headed the Municipal Museum in Bassano del Grappa and reorganized its collections as well as those of the Municipal Museum in Verona , which he was in charge of from 1907 to 1910. In Verona, too, Gerola continued to publish eagerly, both on historical subjects of Trentino, in Verona he deepened his studies on the Castelbarco family as well as on other areas of art history. Among other things, he dealt with heraldry and numismatics . In the latter in particular, he showed great interest throughout his life.

In 1909 he was first Ispettore of the Soprintendenza ai Monumenti di Verona in the national preservation of monuments in Italy . A year later, Corrado Ricci , who was in charge of the state institutions for the preservation of monuments, called him to Ravenna to head the Office for the Preservation of Monuments in Romagna (September 1, 1910 head of the Museo Nazionale in Ravenna, December 1, 1910 soprintendente the Soprintendenza ai Monumenti della Romagna ). Under his direction, numerous architectural monuments from the Gothic- Byzantine era were restored in Ravenna , such as the Arian Baptistery , Sant'Apollinare Nuovo , the mausoleum of Theodoric , the mausoleum of Galla Placidia and the archbishop's chapel . He also worked as an archaeologist during excavations in the Church of San Vitale . One of his most important works in Ravenna is the dating and classification of the monuments he called deuterobizantini , in which he included the sacred buildings built around the year 1000.

After the Italian entry into World War I, Gerola volunteered. However, his request was rejected. During the war he was tasked with safeguarding art monuments from any war damage in Romagna. After the end of the war, because of his knowledge of the history of art in Trentino, he was commissioned by Ricci to deal with the repatriation of objects of art, archives and books from Trentino that had been brought to Innsbruck and Vienna after the secularization of the Principality of Trento . The manuscripts that have been retrieved include the Purple Gospel and two sacramentaries from the 9th and 11th centuries.

On December 1, 1919, he was appointed head of the Bureau for Art and Cultural Assets in Trento, which was converted into the Office for the Preservation of Monuments and Cultural Assets ( Soprintendenza della Venezia Tridentina ) in 1923 and was also responsible for South Tyrol . During his tenure, Gerola campaigned for the preservation of the cultural heritage in South Tyrol, even if the Italianization program of Ettore Tolomei put obstacles in his way. In 1926 he successfully opposed the planned demolition of the Dominican Church in Bolzano , which had served as a military hospital during World War I, and campaigned for its restoration. However, his resistance to the partial renovation of the city ​​museum and the redesign of the savings bank building in Bozen in the rationalistic style was unsuccessful . He was also critical of the victory memorial . The latter stood in contrast to the rapprochement and cultural dialogue with the German-speaking population of South Tyrol, which he cautiously propagated, especially with regard to the culture of remembrance of the First World War. In a 1922 document entitled L'archittetura nuova dell'Alto Adige ( Eng . The new architecture in Upper Etsch ), he drew attention to the possible negative effects of this redesign in the style of Italian imperialism. In Trento, too, he and a number of Trentino architects opposed the demolition of buildings that were too German and promoted the debate about an own regional architectural style. Nevertheless, Gerola's position in the conflict of nationalities is to be regarded as ambivalent, as he underlined the original Italianity of certain buildings in the region, which was lost in subsequent renovations and should therefore be restored.

In the 1920s he took over the preservation of monuments in the provinces of Verona , Vicenza , in addition to Trentino and South Tyrol , and from 1924 in Mantua . During his twenty-year tenure in Trento, numerous buildings in Trentino and South Tyrol were restored, including the Torre Vanga , the Church of San Lorenzo , the Torre Malipiero of the Castle of Rovereto , the Monastery of San Romedio and Castle Tyrol . The most important project was certainly the restoration of the Castello del Buonconsiglio in Trento from 1920 to 1933.

During his time as the chief monument conservator in Trento, Gerola dealt not only with topics relating to the Trentino-South Tyrol region. He also took an active part in the cultural life in Italy, took part as a speaker at congresses, wrote writings and gave readings at the universities of Padua and Verona .

Gerola was a member of the Accademia Roveretana degli Agiati (1902), corresponding member of the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti and from 1920 until his death director of the Studi Trentini di Scienze Storiche .

family

Giuseppe Gerola married Ernesta Cena from Arsiero in 1907 , with whom he had five children, including the Italianist Berengario Gerola (* 1908 in Verona, † 1953 in Trento), the pharmacist Domenico Udalrico Gerola (* 1909 in Moltrasio ; † 1963 in Trento) and the botanist Filippo Marcabruno Gerola (* 1914 in Pergine Valsugana , † 2006 in Milan ), holder of the Department of Botany at the University of Milan.

Fonts (selection)

Gerola published more than 850 writings, 500 alone after taking office as a monument conservator in Trento. He dealt with the most diverse topics. Gerola's works first emerged against the political background of irredentism, anti-Austrian nationalism and then under fascism . Regardless of the political trend, his main concern has always been the preservation of the cultural heritage. A complete list of writings can be found in Paolo Maria Tua in Archivio veneto 68, 1939, pp. 259–288.

• Monumenti veneti nell'isola di Creta. 4 volumes, Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti, Venice 1905–1932 ( digitized version ).
• Una Ballata del quattrocento sulle donne Padovane . Società Cooperativa Tipografica, Padua 1905 ( archive.org ).
• Bassano. Con 160 illustrazioni . Istituto Italiano d'Arti Grafiche, Bergamo 1910 ( archive.org ).
• Le antiche pale di S. Maria in Organo di Verona . Istituto italiano d'arti grafiche, Bergamo 1913.
• Artisti trentini all'estero. Scotoni, Trient 1930.
• The Castello del Buonconsiglio and the Museo nazionale di Trento. La Libreria dello stato, Rome 1934.
• Scritti ravennati , ed. by Rita Romanelli. 2 volumes, Società di Studi Ravennati, Ravenna 2016–2017.

literature

• Spiridione Alessandro Curuni, Lucilla Donati (ed.): Creta veneziana. L'Istituto veneto e la missione cretese di Giuseppe Gerola. Collezione fotografica. 1900-1902. Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti, Venice 1988.
• Rita Romanelli: Giuseppe Gerola from Ravenna e Trento: restauro, architettura e "arte nova" . In: Studi trentini di scienze storiche . Sezione 2, 72/73, 1993/94 [1997], pp. 89-140.
• Gian Maria Varanini:  Gerola, Giuseppe. In: Mario Caravale (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 53:  Gelati – Ghisalberti. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1999, pp. 460–463, incorrectly stated here as March 21, 1938 as the date of death.
• Massimo Martignoni: Il progetto monumentale in Italia tra le due guerre. In: Gerald Steinacher, Aram Mattioli (ed.): Faschismus und Architektur = Architettura e fascismo , Studienverlag, Innsbruck 2008, pp. 80–99 ( digitized version ).
• Elisa Ninz: L'archivio personale di Giuseppe Gerola presso la Fondazione Biblioteca San Bernardino di Trento 1890–1938 (con documenti dal XVIII secolo e seguiti al 1950). Inventario Analitico . Dissertation Trento 2009 ( digitized version ).
• Isabella Baldini et al. (Ed.): L'avventura archeologica di Giuseppe Gerola dall'Egeo a Ravenna . Ed. del Girasole, Ravenna 2011, ISBN 978-88-7567-541-7 .
• Martin Dennert: Giuseppe Gerola. In: Stefan Heid, Martin Dennert (Hrsg.): Personal Lexicon for Christian Archeology. Researchers and personalities from the 16th to the 21st century . Volume 1. Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-7954-2620-0 , pp. 571-573.

Web links

Commons : Giuseppe Gerola  - Collection of Images

• Literature by and about Giuseppe Gerola in the bibliographic database WorldCat
• Biography on the website of the University of Bologna
• Entries in Arthistoricum.net

Remarks

1. ↑ ^{a b} Elisa Ninz: L'archivio personale di Giuseppe Gerola presso la Fondazione Biblioteca San Bernardino di Trento p. 4
2. ↑ Elisa Ninz: L'archivio personale di Giuseppe Gerola presso la Fondazione Biblioteca San Bernardino di Trento S. 5-7.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Gian Maria Varanini:  Giuseppe Gerola. In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI).
4. ↑ Elisa Ninz: L'archivio personale di Giuseppe Gerola presso la Fondazione Biblioteca San Bernardino di Trento S. 8-15.
5. ↑ For this work Gerola received the Premio Mussolini of the Accademia d'Italia in 1933
6. ↑ Elisa Ninz: L'archivio personale di Giuseppe Gerola presso la Fondazione Biblioteca San Bernardino di Trento 17-21.
7. ↑ Elisa Ninz: L'archivio personale di Giuseppe Gerola presso la Fondazione Biblioteca San Bernardino di Trento S. 22nd
8. ↑ Elisa Ninz: L'archivio personale di Giuseppe Gerola presso la Fondazione Biblioteca San Bernardino di Trento S. 27-30.
9. ↑ Elisa Ninz: L'archivio personale di Giuseppe Gerola presso la Fondazione Biblioteca San Bernardino di Trento S. 34-36.
10. ^ Giuseppe Gerola: Per la reintegrazione delle raccolte trentine spogliate dall'Austria . In: Rivista delle biblioteche e degli archivi 29, 1918, pp. 1–23; Elisa Ninz: L'archivio personale di Giuseppe Gerola presso la Fondazione Biblioteca San Bernardino di Trento, pp. 23–26.
11. ^ Massimo Martignoni: Il progetto monumentale in Italia tra le due guerre 2008, p. 87.
12. ↑ Elisa Ninz: L'archivio personale di Giuseppe Gerola presso la Fondazione Biblioteca San Bernardino di Trento S. 41-47.
13. ↑ Gian Paolo Treccani: Tracce della Grande guerra. Architetture e restauri nella ricorrenza del centenario. In: ArchHistoR 1, 2014, No. 1, pp. 135–179, here pp. 172–174 ( digitized version ).
14. ↑ Elisa Ninz: L'archivio personale di Giuseppe Gerola presso la Fondazione Biblioteca San Bernardino di Trento 47-55.
15. ↑ Elisa Ninz: L'archivio personale di Giuseppe Gerola presso la Fondazione Biblioteca San Bernardino di Trento S. 62nd