Two cities in comparison, in the image that they have transmitted protagonists and actors of the Grand Tour.
The cities are those of Montepulciano, where the exhibition is proposed, the other the preferred destination of European travelers, or Rome.
The temporal scope investigated is mainly that of the nineteenth century, from its beginnings, until its transshipment in the following century. The last, great period of a phenomenon that had, especially in the eighteenth century, one of its epic moments, as already amply documented by many important exhibitions on Vedutism.

“Montepulciano and the Eternal City. Landscapes and views from the aesthetics of the Grand Tour to the mid-twentieth century “, curated by Roberto Longi, with the collaboration of Renato Mammucari and Fabrizio Nevola, and organized by the Municipality of Montepulciano, is proposed from July 14 to October 7 in the halls of the Civic Museum Pinacoteca Crociani in Montepulciano.

Rome and the Roman countryside, as well as Montepulciano and its rural surroundings come alive in over a hundred oils, drawings, watercolors, and vintage engravings collected here. All views of the two cities or the rural environment that at the time surrounded them and often interpenetrated.

If for some paintings the documentary interest prevails, many others stand out also for the artistic level. On display are important works by Carlo Labruzzi, Michelangelo Pacetti, Giulio Aristide Sartorius, Luigi Petrassi, Ranieri Rossi and works by Ettore Roesler Franz, the “prince of the Roman watercolors”.
But in some ways even more interesting are the views of Rome, and this part of Sienese land, offers foreign artists, for whom the Grand Tour has meant a real change of paradigm. Such as the Spanish Juan Gimenez Martin, the English Samuel Prout, the Bavarian Karl Lindemann-Frommel, the Swiss Salomon Corrodi, another great watercolourist who performed numerous views for Tsar Nicholas I and Queen Victoria.

Next to the paintings, the exhibition offers a selection of other materials that, brought by the servant, accompanied the “Tourist” along his long journey. Testimonies of an era and a lifestyle: from the travel desk, to portable inkcups, to travel pharmacies, indispensable in times of malaria, to the tools to organize, on the way, a good snack. The noble traveler had to be perfect on every occasion, and here are the ties, the jewelery box and the fragrance holder, but also the pounds, the travel chessboards to be extracted from the luggage to make the evenings in the inns less monotonous. Then the inevitable travel sticks that could turn into an effective defense weapon or preserve a corroborative and secret reserve of fine liquor. Finally, the last section of the exhibition, no less fascinating: the work tools of the artist on the road: from the boxes for oil paints to those for the watercolor, from the palettes to the materials for the graphic techniques, from the sketchbooks to the job port folders.
That the Grand Tour was planned with much knowledge of the facts confirm the editions of Baedekers Central Italy, with lots of plants, and the many, very different “guides” of Italy and Rome that also bear famous brands like that of Charles Dickens or by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

The exhibition is part of two projects carried out by the Crociani Art Gallery. The one entitled “Riflessioni di paesaggio”, which began in 2010 with an important exhibition on the Macchiaioli, the second dedicated to the emergence of high quality private collections. As is the case with this exhibition, which draws, in a wide way, from two noteworthy Roman collections, and from numerous private collections of Polizia with works never before exhibited to the public.

With the Municipality of Montepulciano, the owner of the initiative, the Fondazione Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte, the Fondazione Musei Senesi, Vernice Progetti Culturali, the Pro Loco of Montepulciano and the Telematica Pegasus University – Montepulciano Headquarters collaborate in the exhibition.
Info: Museo Civico Montepulciano tel. 0578 717300

Press Office of the Municipality of Montepulciano – dr. Diego Mancuso
d.mancuso@comune.montepulciano.si.it

in collaboration with
ESSECI Study, Sergio Campagnolo tel. 049.663499
Contact person Simone Raddi: gestione2@studioesseci.net