Villa delle Rose 1916-1936

In the year that marks the centenary of the donation of Villa delle Rose to the Municipality of Bologna by Countess Nerina Armandi Avogli, the Istituzione Bologna Musei presents a reflection on the moment that can be considered the start of the history of the Galleria d'Arte Moderna which, with its subsequent developments over a century of history, has led to what is now known as MAMbo.

The exhibition Villa delle Rose 1936, curated by Uliana Zanetti and Barbara Secci, shows a reconstruction of the exhibition set up eighty years ago by Guido Zucchini, the first to fully execute the donor's wishes by including works exclusively from the 20th century.

Fundamental to restoring the sense of the 1936 exhibition and the context in which it was set up was the research that went into the unpublished essays which, with a text by Uliana Zanetti, are included in this catalogue accompanying the exhibition: Anna Maria Matteucci Armandi Avogli has traced the figures of her ancestors Nerina De Piccoli and Guelfo Armandi Avogli, Manuela Rubbini has reconstructed the early twentieth-century history of Villa delle Rose, while Elena Pirazzoli has retraced the events that followed until the Second World War.