Artists for the stage of the twentieth century. Iconic Italian theatrical tailoring costumes. This article discusses some of the ways in which the Art of Costume has designed and produced technically quality artifacts creating spectacular costumes by Cerratelli tailoring in Florence (1914-1995). Since 2005 there has been a collaboration with the University of Pisa in the cataloguing of the costume collection of the Cerratelli Foundation (Pugnano, San Giuliano Teme, Pisa), particularly on themes related to historic costumes for lyric or cinema, costumes for ballet and inventive costumes for theatre. Cerratelli Foundation can boast intense years of activity marked by some important exhibitions (2005-2021), but above all by profitable research activity conducted in collaboration with the Department of Civilization and Forms of Knowledge of Pisa University. As a result, a rich selection of costumes, is available on the portal Europeana Fashion, of which the Foundation is a partner. From this fantastic archive of Italian cultural heritage, is offered a selection on costumes painted by some excellent Italian Artists of the twentieth century. Aldo Calvo (1906-1991) creates an imposing costume for Magic Flute (1940) and the character of the Queen of the night, which is an example of pictorial decoration and colors the feathers of a bright red to identify the ambivalent spirituality of Papageno, that a bodice of blue-blue feathers makes man-bird, while a lively chromatic fantasy dresses his Papagena. Luciano Damiani (1923-2007) for the Abduction from the Serraglio of Mozart’s (art director Giorgio Strehler, 1965) plays on the fabrics of the costumes with light effects that make school and turns performers into silhouette. Renato Guttuso (1912-1987) and Mino Maccari (1919-1989) bring their own artistic vein working at the festival of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, in whose archives are kept the figurines of the colorful and original costumes: Guttuso La giara (ballet, 1957); Maccari Il naso (1964) and Falstaff (1970), both directed by Eduardo De Filippo. The work of these artists has marked the history of the Italian theatrical costume. In contrast to the pictorial tradition are the experiments of the seventies, a decade characterized by the use of new materials and bold shapes as great illustrate the costumes of Corrado Cagli (1910-1976) for lyric and Maria Antonietta Gambaro (1929-1981) for ballet. In the same years Cerratelli workshop realizes tailoring perfection costumes and choice of high quality materials from the sketch of Anna Anni (1926-2011), demonstrating the coverage of trends. A dense core of costumes was designed and created by Emanuele Luzzati (1921-2007) to whom we could not fail to pay homage in the year of its centenary: the artisan of the theatre, as he liked to define himself, commissioned about 800 costumes to Cerratelli tailoring for lyric (Gioacchino Rossini and Wolfang Amadeus Mozart) and ballet (Igor Stravinskij). The style of Luzzati is imposed in the use of painted and printed fabrics, in the models of the costumes that with great attention reproduce his colorful figurines, real characters of the show.
