Pietro Chiesa opened his Milanese stained glass workshop Bottega. in 1921, beginning to exhibit, always with greater success, in the most important decorative art exhibitions of the period. The Biennali di Monza are a privileged occasion of exchange with other artists and architects, among them Gio Ponti and Gustavo Pulitzer Finali, of Studio Stuard, with whom he collaborated from 1927 to 1932 in the interior design of six ships. The contribution reconsiders these works, paying attention to the development of the artist’s taste, from the initial neoclassical references, mediated by the twentieth-century current of Il Labirinto to which he was referring, towards a more modern “rationalist” design. In 1933 the Chiesa’s Bottega became part of the Fontana Arte company, of which Chiesa together with Ponti was art director, and with which he continues to collaborate in the interior design of ships. The impossibility of access to the Pietro Chiesa and Fontana Arte archives, as well as the fact that the Pulitzer archive kept in Parma, contains documentation that can be dated from 1938 onwards, has been made up for through the use of bibliographic sources, mostly from magazines, precise chronicles of the time, and iconographic sources that best illustrate the substance of Pietro Chiesa’s interventions.

Giorgio Levi

Giorgio Levi, triestino di nascita e pisano di adozione, è stato professore ordinario di Informatica fino al 2012: uno dei fondatori della prestigiosa scuola pisana, ricercatore noto a livello internazionale, insignito dell’ordine del Cherubino. Da anni collezionista di ceramica italiana del primo novecento, si è trasformato in studioso, dedicandosi alla riscoperta e valorizzazione di ceramisti, manifatture e distretti ceramici dimenticati o mai studiati in modo scientifico. Ha pubblicato 7 libri e curato 2 mostre.

This essay aims to present in an organic form the work of interior design, enriched by an important nucleus of artistic creations, on board the Lloyd Triestino’s motorship Victoria, entered in service 27 July 1931 from Trieste to Alexandria. After an introduction that summarizes the history of the maritime connection between the two Mediterranean cities and the commercial reasons that led to the building of the ship, the main technical and aesthetic characteristics of its construction project are described. The collaboration between the naval engineer Nicolò Costanzi and the architect Gustavo Pulitzer Finali is also emphasized: the two protagonists of the construction of one of the most beautiful and innovative Italian ships between the two wars. The text continues by analyzing the advertising campaign for the promotion of the new motorship, where emerges the work of Giuseppe Riccobaldi, an important Genoese advertising graphic designer. This is followed by the description and analysis of the first and second class lounges, designed mainly by Gustavo Pulitzer and by the Ducrot Company from Palermo. The article points out the formal and aesthetic balance achieved by the innovative architectural project and the numerous works of decorative art created by various artists such as the sculptors Libero Andreotti and Maryla Lednicka, the architect Gio Ponti’s for the ceramic lining, Pietro Chiesa for the stained glass windows and the painters August Cernigoj and Elena Fondra for the mural decorations.

Giorgio Levi

Giorgio Levi, triestino di nascita e pisano di adozione, è stato professore ordinario di Informatica fino al 2012: uno dei fondatori della prestigiosa scuola pisana, ricercatore noto a livello internazionale, insignito dell’ordine del Cherubino. Da anni collezionista di ceramica italiana del primo novecento, si è trasformato in studioso, dedicandosi alla riscoperta e valorizzazione di ceramisti, manifatture e distretti ceramici dimenticati o mai studiati in modo scientifico. Ha pubblicato 7 libri e curato 2 mostre.

The essay introduces the work of the painter Anselmo Bucci for the outfitting of three ships of the Navigazione Libera Triestina company, Timavo, Duchessa d’Aosta and California, built between the second and third decade of the 20th century. In the first part, the author presents, through unpublished documents from the painter’s archive, the controversial acceptance, the debate of the critics and the relations with the client of Bucci’s work. In fact, the interiors designed by the painter are placed in the climate of the renewal of the decorative practice but are rich in historical and vernacular formal references. The second part analyzes the furnishings of the three ships, in relation to the complexity of the pictorial, plastic and architectural work. The author summarizes the spatial integration of the decorative elements of this interesting and little-known episode of ship furnishings, between modernity and traditionalism.

Giorgio Levi

Giorgio Levi, triestino di nascita e pisano di adozione, è stato professore ordinario di Informatica fino al 2012: uno dei fondatori della prestigiosa scuola pisana, ricercatore noto a livello internazionale, insignito dell’ordine del Cherubino. Da anni collezionista di ceramica italiana del primo novecento, si è trasformato in studioso, dedicandosi alla riscoperta e valorizzazione di ceramisti, manifatture e distretti ceramici dimenticati o mai studiati in modo scientifico. Ha pubblicato 7 libri e curato 2 mostre.

The author offers a concise review of ceramic works of art on Italian passenger ships. Starting from the first applications, due to the collaboration between Gio Ponti and Gustavo Pulitzer, on the liner Saturnia of 1927, it continues with post-war ships up to the 1960s. The reconstruction of the Italian merchant navy sees the construction of many passenger ships for the fleets of Finmare group with the participation of architects, artists and decorators. The use of ceramics prevailed in the 1950s promoted by Gio Ponti who employs artists and artisans with the aim of advertise the Italian craftsmanship and art. Large use of ceramics is made on board the liners Conte Grande, Conte Biancamano and Andrea Doria and on other units of the Italian fleet with works by Lucio Fontana, Fausto Melotti, Guido Gambone, Pietro Melandri, Afro Basaldella, Leoncillo Leonardi and others. An opportunity to re-examine the languages and creations of Italian artists of a season in which ceramic was the protagonist of architectural decoration.

Giorgio Levi

Giorgio Levi, triestino di nascita e pisano di adozione, è stato professore ordinario di Informatica fino al 2012: uno dei fondatori della prestigiosa scuola pisana, ricercatore noto a livello internazionale, insignito dell’ordine del Cherubino. Da anni collezionista di ceramica italiana del primo novecento, si è trasformato in studioso, dedicandosi alla riscoperta e valorizzazione di ceramisti, manifatture e distretti ceramici dimenticati o mai studiati in modo scientifico. Ha pubblicato 7 libri e curato 2 mostre.

Through the biographical process of this palermitan artist-designer, we can certainly highlight his ecletism in researching different variations, in both types of iconographic implants, now high incisive, now sophisticated and delicate. In the decorative art years of Sicily, what comes out of this profile is not only a new and interesting protagonist, but also a slowly evolving period that was in the first decade of the XX century dominated by Ernesto Basile.

Giorgio Levi

Giorgio Levi, triestino di nascita e pisano di adozione, è stato professore ordinario di Informatica fino al 2012: uno dei fondatori della prestigiosa scuola pisana, ricercatore noto a livello internazionale, insignito dell’ordine del Cherubino. Da anni collezionista di ceramica italiana del primo novecento, si è trasformato in studioso, dedicandosi alla riscoperta e valorizzazione di ceramisti, manifatture e distretti ceramici dimenticati o mai studiati in modo scientifico. Ha pubblicato 7 libri e curato 2 mostre.

The note describes an important piece of furniture designed by Guido Andlovitz, winner of the First Prize in the E.N.A.P.I. competition, at the Monza Biennale in 1927.

Giorgio Levi

Giorgio Levi, triestino di nascita e pisano di adozione, è stato professore ordinario di Informatica fino al 2012: uno dei fondatori della prestigiosa scuola pisana, ricercatore noto a livello internazionale, insignito dell’ordine del Cherubino. Da anni collezionista di ceramica italiana del primo novecento, si è trasformato in studioso, dedicandosi alla riscoperta e valorizzazione di ceramisti, manifatture e distretti ceramici dimenticati o mai studiati in modo scientifico. Ha pubblicato 7 libri e curato 2 mostre.

The article deals with Vittorio Zecchin’s participation at the Prima Biennale di Monza, in 1923. It analyzes the works presented by the artist and the contexts in which they were conceived. These works are the peculiar example of achieving of the perfect balance between art and craftsmanship required by the supporters of the synthesis of the arts in the first quarter of the 20th century. The idea of the article is of focusing – through a case study – on the awareness of Italy of its potential in the field of design of beautiful and functional objects: the Belpaese is finally beginning to ally itself with industry, thus entering the Twentieth century and opening the doors to what will be called “beautiful Design” twenty years later.

Giorgio Levi

Giorgio Levi, triestino di nascita e pisano di adozione, è stato professore ordinario di Informatica fino al 2012: uno dei fondatori della prestigiosa scuola pisana, ricercatore noto a livello internazionale, insignito dell’ordine del Cherubino. Da anni collezionista di ceramica italiana del primo novecento, si è trasformato in studioso, dedicandosi alla riscoperta e valorizzazione di ceramisti, manifatture e distretti ceramici dimenticati o mai studiati in modo scientifico. Ha pubblicato 7 libri e curato 2 mostre.

The history of Duilio Cambellotti’s important relations with Sicily begins at least in the middle of the first decade of the century, almost ten years earlier than the Roman artist’s celebrated commitment to the Greek theater in Syracuse. In this first phase, the fulcrum of these relationships is Palermo, which Cambellotti will visit only in 1933, on the sidelines of his stay in Ragusa for the frescoes at the seat of the Prefecture, when by now his professional ties with sicilian chief town be almost ended. In this essay, therefore, a first reasoned synthesis of the works that the artist has performed for Palermo subjects, starting with Florio and Ducrot, is proposed. The type of relationship with the client is also investigated, highlighting the often decisive role of Edoardo De Fonseca and the publishing company of Novissima. In almost all cases, the works identified and analyzed consist of illustrations, both with explicit advertising purposes and with a preeminent decorative character. An exception is the trophy for the Targa Florio, the famous car competition, perhaps the most studied episode of Cambellotti’s works in Palermo together with the drawings for the associated magazine, Rapiditas. The research carried out has brought to light some elements of novelty in both areas. For the Targa Florio, in particular, a gold version of the trophy, assigned in the 1911 competition, was found in a private Piedmontese collection. So far, in addition to two preparatory plasters, only one bronze casting relating to the 1920 race had been found and published. This episode had led to believe that bronze was the material in which the “plaque” was usually produced, while the adoption of this metal alloy took place starting from the editions following the break imposed by the war events. Cambellotti’s artistic contributions to promotional materials for the Italian General Navigation and other companies attributable directly or indirectly to the Florio family were also deepen, focusing above all on the internal decorations for the NGI’s twenty-five year brochure, which had not yet been subject of a specific close examination. Finally, a corpus consisting of graphic interventions, partly not mentioned in Cambellotti’s literature, was reconstructed, which the roman artist performed for some Palermo publisher, largely intended for pedagogical area books.

Giorgio Levi

Giorgio Levi, triestino di nascita e pisano di adozione, è stato professore ordinario di Informatica fino al 2012: uno dei fondatori della prestigiosa scuola pisana, ricercatore noto a livello internazionale, insignito dell’ordine del Cherubino. Da anni collezionista di ceramica italiana del primo novecento, si è trasformato in studioso, dedicandosi alla riscoperta e valorizzazione di ceramisti, manifatture e distretti ceramici dimenticati o mai studiati in modo scientifico. Ha pubblicato 7 libri e curato 2 mostre.

From 1900 to 1905, in just five years, Ernesto Basile made a very significant parable in Palermo in the culture of the project of Italian modernism. It is a time frame between the design definition, also for the furnishings, of two prestigious mansions: the Villino Florio (1899-1902), the first mature and coherent example of Liberty in Italy, and the Villa Deliella (1905-1909), the first Sicilian manifestation of an academic review of modernism. Both houses, whose clients belong to the most dynamic and culturally internationalist component of the Palermitan hegemon class, are paradigmatic expressions of two dichotomo’s phases of the Sicilian derivation of the modernist principle of “integral design”. These two architectures, exemplary of the two different “image policy” guidelines of the wealthy owners, are an expression of a high level of elaboration of a “Silicon Way” to the modern reform of the culture of living of the late Belle Epoque. The correspondence between the compositional logics of the factories and the respective spatial relationships of the rooms and the configurations of the furnishings was, in reality, the point of arrival of a consolidated endogenous architectural culture, strong in a remarkable scientific-cultural humus and which dates back to the neoclassical period. It was now about to exhaust its mandate as interpreter of the more cultured, but still elitist, component of Sicilian society in the nineteenth century; a society which, despite the endemic contradictions, had experienced important social tensions and considerable proactive impulses, both entrepreneurial and cultural, but which was now turning towards a slow decline. The Villino Florio and the Villa Deliella, not least for the different conception of the furnishings, can therefore represent the extremes of that time frame which coincides with the apogee of this formidable period of Sicilian history of the Contemporary Age.

Giorgio Levi

Giorgio Levi, triestino di nascita e pisano di adozione, è stato professore ordinario di Informatica fino al 2012: uno dei fondatori della prestigiosa scuola pisana, ricercatore noto a livello internazionale, insignito dell’ordine del Cherubino. Da anni collezionista di ceramica italiana del primo novecento, si è trasformato in studioso, dedicandosi alla riscoperta e valorizzazione di ceramisti, manifatture e distretti ceramici dimenticati o mai studiati in modo scientifico. Ha pubblicato 7 libri e curato 2 mostre.

The article takes into consideration those writings of Enrico Crispolti which deal with the theme of goldsmithing, by highlighting the subdivisions that he had proposed in defining the different operational approaches into three distinct categories: artists, artists specialized in jewelery and the goldsmith industry. We have also tried to reflect on the possible reasons that, over the course of his career, have generated Crispolti’s interest in the decorative arts and the actions he has carried out, especially through the organization of exhibitions, in proposing a stimulus towards research in artisan production, not only linked to jewelery.

Giorgio Levi

Giorgio Levi, triestino di nascita e pisano di adozione, è stato professore ordinario di Informatica fino al 2012: uno dei fondatori della prestigiosa scuola pisana, ricercatore noto a livello internazionale, insignito dell’ordine del Cherubino. Da anni collezionista di ceramica italiana del primo novecento, si è trasformato in studioso, dedicandosi alla riscoperta e valorizzazione di ceramisti, manifatture e distretti ceramici dimenticati o mai studiati in modo scientifico. Ha pubblicato 7 libri e curato 2 mostre.