This exhibition devoted to Byzantine art history in Italy will be held in Palazzo Liviano, formerly the Humanities Faculty – a building erected, decorated, and frescoed in the 1930s by Giò Ponti, and Massimo Campigli, who were among the leading architects and painters of their day.
Through a range of partly unpublished documents, visitors will have the opportunity to explore the paths taken by the leading scholars in this discipline: Adriano Alpago Novello (1932-2005), Sergio Bettini (1905-1986), Giuseppe Bovini (1915-1975), Géza de Francovich (1902-96), Fernanda de’ Maffei (1917-2011), Giuseppe Gerola (1877-1938), and Paolo Verzone (1902-1986).
One section of the exhibition will commemorate art historians who have recently passed away: Claudia Barsanti, Raffaella Farioli Campanati, Ennio Concina, Italo Furlan, and Giancarlo Macchiarella.
Memoirs, period photographs, and publications will illustrate the physical and intellectual journeys made by historians of Byzantine art. This subject became a focus of university courses in Padua and Rome in a historical period that witnessed a rediscovery of the Italian imperial tradition.
A video-interview recorded during the exhibition held at Istanbul’s Koç University (2018) will commemorate personalities otherwise not included in the exhibition purely for logistic reasons.
The proceedings of recent conferences and specific publications will help identify available photographic archives in Italy, enabling scholars taking part in the Congress to broaden their knowledge of the study of Byzantine antiquities in the 20 th century.