Project Description
The “In Arte Libertas” Society (1886-1903)
Catalog presentation: Friday, November 22th at 5:30 PM
Inauguration: Friday, November 22th at 6:00 PM
Exhibition: November 23th to December 21st
On February 10, 1886, in Rome, at Via San Nicola da Tolentino 72, a group of artists launched an independent exhibition of their works, breaking away from the annual show organized by the Amateurs and Supporters of Fine Arts. This marked the birth of the “In Arte Libertas” society, which would go on to exhibit annually—both in Rome and beyond—until 1903, affirming the right to “freely love art each in his own way,” as stated in the first article of its statute.
The first exhibition involved painters such as Vincenzo Cabianca and Onorato Carlandi, Alessandro Castelli and Enrico Coleman, Mario De Maria and Lemmo Rossi Scotti, Norberto Pazzini and Gaetano Vannicola, as well as the younger artists Alessandro Morani and Alfredo Ricci, who were responsible for securing the participation of Nino Costa himself.
It was indeed Costa—fresh from an artistic journey that took him from the Macchiaioli circles in Florence to the Salons of Paris and ultimately to England, which became his second home—who many recognize as the charismatic leader capable of answering the desire to engage with trends from abroad, while resisting market fads and academic-governmental interference. The belief was that while “truth” required direct observation of reality, the revelation of “Truth” demanded contemplation, a “feeling” akin to that found in music and poetry. However, modernity was accused of having forgotten or denied the voice of the soul, a voice that artists like Bellini or Botticelli had once known how to listen to—voices to which one must inevitably turn to remember, relearn how to love, and therefore to be free. Only in this way could nature truly live again in the artist’s spirit, just as artists of the past had been able to perceive it without tension, uncorrupted by time.
This was the spirit of the Etruscan School, the Anglo-Roman movement that arose around Costa in the winter of 1883-84, of which “In Arte Libertas” was a natural evolution within the cultural climate of the Eternal City. Here, the symbolist and aestheticist tendencies promoted by Gabriele D’Annunzio and Angelo Conti took root, and in turn influenced the inclinations of the Society, whose members—at its very inception—participated in illustrating the D’Annunzian verses of Isaotta Guttadauro.
It was amidst “bold aspirations and infinite despondencies,” borrowing Conti’s words, that “In Arte Libertas” passed through the twilight of the century and welcomed the dawn of the new one. At times, it extended its boundaries to anticipate, in certain respects, the role of the Venice Biennale itself—where the Society would secure a room in 1899—by exhibiting works by foreign artists on Via Nazionale, including Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
Giulio Aristide Sartorio, a member himself, would later recall the story of “In Arte Libertas,” speaking of its meaningful battles “aimed at shaking off the intellectual torpor of Rome.”
Great names stood alongside virtually unknown artists, then as now, where even the great ones have too often fallen into oblivion. The common denominator, in Costa’s terms, was to stimulate, create a study environment, and showcase research done with “sincerity” and “love.”
Through paintings, drawings, and sculptures—including works by extremely rare artists in the market, such as Vannicola, Pontecorvo, Formilli, and the almost unknown Attilia Marini—this exhibition seeks to pay homage to such research and draw attention back to the impact of a movement that shaped the aesthetic culture of Rome in the last two decades of the 19th century.
The scholar Federico De Mattia, who dedicated his doctoral research to “In Arte Libertas,” curated an important catalog for the exhibition.
Giovanni Costa (1826-1903), On the Lazio Coast
Oil on board, 27 x 37 cm, signed lower left.
Giovanni Costa (1826-1903), Capri
Oil on canvas, 27 x 53 cm, signed lower center.
George Heming Mason (1818-1872), At the Watering Hole
Oil on board, 31 x 61 cm, signed and dated “Rome 1855” lower right.
Giovanni Costa (1826-1903), Dawn (study for The Awakening of Nature)
Oil on canvas, 25 x 53 cm, signed lower left.
Napoleone Parisani (1853-1932), Bocca d’Arno
Oil on a panel 16 x 58 cm signed lower left and dated 1886 on the back.
Napoleone Parisani (1853-1932), The river Velino in Rieti
Oil on a panel 25 x 45 cm with monogram lower left and signature on the back.
Napoleone Parisani (1853-1932), Portrait of Carlotta Parisani
Oil on canvas, 35 x 24 cm, with monogram at the bottom left and bottom right, on the back: inscribed “A M.r and M.me Hébert/ hommage respecteux/ Napoléon Parisani/ 7mbre 1891”.
Napoleone Parisani (1853-1932), Portrait of a Lady
Oil on canvas, 42 x 30 cm.
Napoleone Parisani (1853-1932), San Gimignano
Oil on paper applied on canvas, 28 x 29 cm.
Napoleone Parisani (1853-1932), Roman Campagna
Oil on board, 20 x 39 cm.
Napoleone Parisani (1853-1932), Ponte San Giovanni, Perugia
Oil on cardboard, 26 x 34 cm signed lower left, on the back: titled and signed.
Napoleone Parisani (1853-1932), Castel Gandolfo
Oil on board, 32 x 19 cm.
Norberto Pazzini (1856-1937), Villa of Claudio di Lorena
Watercolor on paper, 34 x 56 cm signed and dated “91” lower left, on the
back: inscribed “Norberto Pazzini 1891. On the bank of the Tiber/ Rome disappeared./ Villa of Claudio di/ Lorena”.
Norberto Pazzini (1856-1937), Adriatic Sea
Oil on cardboard, 29 x 50 cm, signed and dated “1914” lower right, on the
back: cartouche of the Galleria Pesaro in Milan, inscribed “N.95”.
Norberto Pazzini (1856-1937), Snow on Monte Mario
Oil on board, 10 x 17 cm, signed and dated “Roma 88” lower left, on the
back: titled, signed and dated “Roma 1888”.
Giuseppe Cellini (1855-1940), San Domenico
Oil on canvas, 115 x 67 cm.
Giuseppe Cellini (1855-1940), Ninfa
Mixed media on cardboard, 62 x 31 cm, signed, dedicated and dated “To my dear friend Adolfo De Bosis with affection G. Cellini Oporto 1890”.
Giuseppe Cellini (1855-1940), Portuguese Landscape
Mixed media on cardboard, 68 x 96 cm, signed lower left, on the
back: inscribed on the frame “Giuseppe Cellini/ (passeggiata di Ripetta 25)/ Landscape”, cartouche “686”, on the cardboard cartouche “5./C.g.”.
Alessandro Morani (1859-1941), Portrait of Alessandro Castelli
Oil on canvas, 141 x 100 cm.
Alessandro Morani (1859-1941), The Fountain
Oil on board, 68 x 82 cm.
Alessandro Morani (1859-1941), The May Works (II version)
Oil on canvas, 52 x 156 cm, signed and dated “Rome 1889” lower right.
Vincenzo Cabianca (1827–1902), The Day Was Going Away…
Watercolor on paper, 30 x 48 cm, signed lower right, on the
back: inscribed “Cabianca Vincenzo/ 33 via Margutta Roma” upper right, inscribed “The day was going away and the brown air/ Dante. Infern.” bottom right.
Cesare Formilli (1860-1942), Monk Reading
Oil on canvas, 100 x 60 cm, signed and dated “1897” bottom right.
Cesare Formilli (1860-1942), The Gate of the Valley in Affile
Watercolor on paper, 55 x 38 cm, signed and dated “1919” bottom left.
Lemmo Rossi Scotti (1848-1926), Girl Picking Flowers in a Garden
Oil on canvas, 73 x 39 cm, signed and dated “1900” bottom left.
Luigi Serra (1846-1888), Self-portrait
Mixed media drawing on paper, 12 x 9 cm, signed and dated “27 June 1883 Rome” lower right.
Luigi Serra (1846-1888), Portrait of Attilia Marini
Mixed media drawing on paper, 32 x 26 cm, signed, dedicated to Attilia and dated “17 February 1887” lower right.
Luigi Serra (1846-1888), Mater Dei
Oil on terracotta plate, Ø 31 cm.
Attilia Marini (active in Rome at the end of the 19th century), Snowfall, Rome outside Porta Pia
Oil on a panel, 18 x 36 cm, signed lower left, on the back: old label with the title of the work and the price.
Raimondo Pontecorvo (1854-1929), Villa Borghese
Watercolor on paper, 32 x 47 cm, signed and dated “Villa Borghese 1901” lower right.
Raimondo Pontecorvo (1854-1929), Waterfall
Watercolor on paper, 54 x 24 cm, signed and dated “Rome 1902” lower right.
Walter Maclaren (fl. 1869-1883), Girl with Fruit in Capri
Oil on canvas, 122 x 60 cm, signed and dated “84” lower left.
Andrew Benjamin Donaldson (1840-1898), River Landscape
Watercolor on paper, 25 x 61 cm, on the back: cartouche “Peter Nahum LTD”, “43.”.
Ettore Ferrari (1845-1929), Portrait of his sister Emilia
Bronze sculpture, 40 cm high, circular base, Ø 16 cm signed on the back, on the necklace inscribed “Emilia”.
Gaetano Vannicola (1859-1923), Umbrian countryside
Oil on canvas, 40 x 68 cm, signed lower right.
Gaetano Vannicola (1859-1923), Grottammare
Oil on canvas applied on cardboard, 23 x 39 cm.
Gaetano Vannicola (1859-1923), Monte Pettino
Oil on canvas, 58 x 98 cm.
Enrico Coleman (1846-1911), Nel bosco di Lavinio
Watercolor on paper, 49 x 66 cm, signed and inscribed “Roma” lower right, on the back: signed and inscribed “33 via Margutta-Roma/ In the forest of Lavinium – Neighbours”.
Giulio Aristide Sartorio (1860-1932), Grotte di Nerone, Anzio
Mixed media on cardboard, 28 x 59 cm, signed and dated “Roma 1891” lower left.
Giulio Aristide Sartorio (1860-1932), Tree in the Roman countryside
Mixed media on cardboard, 20 x 57 cm, signed and dated “Rome 1892” on the lower right.
Giulio Aristide Sartorio (1860-1932), Lake
Mixed media on cardboard, 21 x 57 cm, signed and dated “Rome 1891” on the lower right.
Giulio Aristide Sartorio (1860-1932), Reading
Oil on canvas, 39 x 57 cm.
Charles Caryl Coleman (1840-1928), Capri
Oil on canvas, 35 x 48 cm, with monogram and date “Capri 1901” on the lower right.
Charles Fairfax Murray (1849-1919), Portrait of Lili Helbig as a Child
Mixed media drawing on paper, 25 x 20 cm.
Lili Helbig Morani (1868-1954), Annunciation
Oil on board, 72 x 105 cm, signed and dated “Anno Domini MCMXXXII” lower right.
Lili Helbig Morani (1868-1954), Early Music
Oil on canvas, 105 x 85 cm, signed and dated “1903” lower right.
Giuseppe Raggio (1823-1916), Butteri
Oil on canvas, 90 x 58 cm, signed and dated “Rome 1881” on the lower left, on the back there is the cartouche of the XVI Venice Biennale, 1928.
Mario de Maria (1852-1924), Capri
Oil on panel, 23 x 37 cm, signed, dedicated “to my friend Prince d’Abro” and dated “Rome 1886” on the lower right.
