Mario Salmi

Mario Salmi (born June 14, 1889 in San Giovanni Valdarno , † November 16, 1980 in Rome ) was an Italian art historian, art critic and academic.

biography

In 1910 he completed his law degree at the University of Pisa , where he wrote a dissertation on the problems of the protection of the artistic heritage in Italy and then took a major in art history at the University of Rome .

He taught in Pisa, then in Florence and finally in Rome , where he taught the history of medieval art and, for a few years, the history of modern art . In 1964 he was appointed Emeritus Professor appointed.

His scientific work focused mainly on the Romanesque and Renaissance periods , with a particular preference for the work of Piero della Francesca . However, his areas of interest spanned a much broader field, ranging from early Christian art to baroque manifestations, and he then managed to focus his interest on areas and eras such as Coptic art , which until then had been unjustly neglected or by critics had been underestimated. On his initiative, the “Centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo” was founded in 1952 together with other scholars and medieval researchers , which brought a historical period back to the center of scientific attention. The first scientific and academic attention to the so-called minor arts is based on his critical sensitivity.

Procedure

His attention was therefore mainly directed towards those courses that have traditionally been neglected by the overwhelming interest in the largest art objects. At a time when Benedetto Croce's aesthetic point of view was dominating in Italy, Mario Salmi approached the neglected areas with a critical analysis that developed before aesthetic perception with a strict historical and philological approach. There were always careful examinations of the objects of study - frescoes, sculptures, churches, parish churches - which he carried out even in the most remote, inaccessible and inaccessible places.

His philological method led to the fact that he also devoted himself intensively to insignificant valid monuments, which were viewed as inferior and therefore neglected. An example of this method can be found in the studies of the Basilica of San Salvatore in Spoleto, which he placed at the center of his entire teaching program during lessons in Florence in the 1945–1946 school year, in which the monument was analyzed “stone by stone”. These studies led, 5 years later, to a careful monographic edition dedicated to the Spoleto monument.

Protection of the landscape and vegetation system

Since completing his thesis, Salmi has always been interested in the protection of cultural heritage. His understanding of the problem carried over the simplistic need to preserve artistic emergencies and was part of a comprehensive vision of protecting the entire landscape system, including forest and vegetation. His speech "Arte-paesaggio-foreste" in 1965 was particularly innovative, in which he showed how important it is to protect the Italian landscape with its typical vegetation, a topic that some people have already noticed. At a time when a decisive step was taken towards irreversible pollution of the flower and plant heritage through the massive inclusion of foreign forest species in the landscape.

Nevertheless, Salmi was also involved in much-discussed actions such as For example, participating in the commission that dismantled the Contini-Bonacossi collection and thereby brought numerous masterpieces ( Zurbarán , Piero della Francesca , Giovanni Bellini , Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo ...) abroad. The political consequences of the affair brought him, after several parliamentary questions, a complaint about "fraud against the state". In the highly competitive environment of historical-artistic studies at the time when he was preferred to Roberto Longhi for the professorship at the University of Rome, the phrase uttered by Bernard Berenson (although there was a rivalry with Longhi) remained famous: “A genius became rejected in favor of an insect ”.

Memberships, awards and students

Salmi was a member of various international academic institutions and associations, such as the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei and the Académie française. He was also active in the Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento, which he founded in 1937, and in the Commissione Nazionale Vinciana, both of which he directed.

He was head of the scientific Enciclopedia Universale dell'Arte , which was published in several volumes from 1958 and was published in English from 1959.

He had numerous students at the universities of Pisa, Florence and Rome. Among these are Enzo Carli , Umberto Baldini and Giovanni Carandente.

Main publications

• (with Basile Khvoshinsky), I pittori toscani dal XIII al XVI secolo , 2 full., Rom, Loescher, 1912-14
• (EN) The "Last Supper" by Leonardo da Vinci and the church of "Le Grazie" in Milan , Fratelli Treves, 1926
• L'architettura romanica in Toscana , Bestetti e Tumminelli, 1928
• La scultura romanica in Toscana , Rinascimento del libro, 1928
  • (EN) Romanesque sculpture in Tuscany , 1928
• Masaccio , Weber, 1935
• Paolo Uccello , Andrea del Castagno , Domenico Veneziano , Casa editrice d'arte "Valori plastici", 1936
• L ' Abbazia di Pomposa , Libreria dello stato, 1938
• Il Palazzo dei Cavalieri e la Scuola normal superiore di Pisa , Nicola Zanichelli, 1932
• L'arte italiana , 3 volumes, 1940–1942
• Piero della Francesca e il Palazzo ducale di Urbino , Le Monnier, 1945
• Masaccio , Masolino , Filippino Lippi , Arti grafiche Amilcare Pizzi, 1945
• Disegni di Francesco di Giorgio nella collezione Chigi Saracini , Ticci, 1947
• Luca Signorelli , Istituto geografico De Agostini, 1953 [1956]
  • (EN) Luca Signorelli , W. Goldman, 1955
• Grandi maestri del'400 , Vallecchi, 1950
• Lezioni di storia dell'arte medievale , Edizioni dell'Ateneo, 1950
• La Basilica di San Salvatore di Spoleto , Florence, Leo S. Olschki, 1951
• Masaccio , Arti grafiche Amilcare Pizzi, 1951
• L'arte italiana , Sansoni, 1952
• La miniatura fiorentina gotica , Fratelli Palombi, 1954
• San Domenico e San Francesco in Arezzo , Del Turco Editore, 1954
• (EN) Italian miniatures , HN Abrams, 1954 [1956], [1957, Collins]
• La miniatura italiana , Electa editrice, 1956 [1981]
• (DE) Italian illumination , Hirmer, 1956
• L'enluminure italienne , Arts et Métiers Graphiques, 1956
• Cosmè Tura , Electa Editrice, 1957
• Enciclopedia universale dell'arte , 15 vol. Venice-Rome, Istituto per la Collaborazione Culturale, 1958–1967
  • (EN): Encyclopedia of World Art , 15 Vol., New York, McGraw-Hill, 1959–1968
• La chiesa inferiore di San Francesco di Arezzo di Mario Salmi , De Luca, 1960
• Andrea del Castagno , Istituto Geografico de Agostini, 1961
• (DE) Romanesque churches in Tuscany , H. Carl, 1961
• The Abbey of Pomposa , Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato , Libreria dello Stato, 1965
• (with Charles de Tolnay ), Michelangelo: artista, pensatore, scrittore , 2 full., Novara, Comitato nazionale per le onoranze a Michelangelo e De Agostini, 1965
• (EN) (with Charles de Tolnay) Drawings of Michelangelo: 103 Drawings in Facsimile
• (with Raffaello De Ruggieri), Le chiese rupestri di Matera , Rome, De Luca, 1966
• Michelangelo , Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei , 1966
• (EN) The Complete Work of Michelangelo , 2 Vol., London, Macdonald, 1966
• Civiltà fiorentina del primo Rinascimento , Sansoni ed., 1967
• Enrico Barfucci , 1968
• Mito e realtà di Leonardo , Editrice G. Barbèra, 1968
• Civiltà artistica della terra aretina , De Agostini, 1971
• (EN) Grimani Breviary , Overlook Press, 1974
• La pittura di Piero della Francesca , 1979
• Parvae Favillae. Scritti di storia dell'arte dal Tardo Antico al Barocco , ed. Maria Cristina Castelli, Maria Grazia Ciardi-Dupré Dal Poggetto, Polistampa, 1989
• Storie di Bizzoche: tra Umbria e Marche . Raccolta di Studi e Testi - Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, Roma 1995, p. 71 , ISBN 978-88-8498-919-2 .
• (EN) Raffaello (Raphael) (with Luisa Becherucci, Alessandro Marabottini, Anna Forlani Tempesti), Grange Books, 1999

Web links

• Mario Salmi ( it ) In: Dictionary of Art Historians . www.dictionaryofarthistorians.org.
• Salmi, Mario ( it ) In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani . Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.
• Biografia ( it ) Società storica aretina.