ARTE FIERA OBSERVATORY
In 2000, after many years as an interior designer, Roberto Martorelli joined the team in charge of the Civic Museum of the Risorgimento’s “Certosa Project,” which promotes and restores Bologna’s monumental Certosa cemetery. He has organised numerous exhibitions (with catalogue), including 'Luce sulle tenebre - Tesori preziosi e nascosti dalla Certosa di Bologna' (2010, with Beatrice Buscaroli) and has written many articles and books on Bologna’s history and sculpture. He created and continues to edit the series entitled 'Scultori bolognesi dell'800 e '900', the first publishing project of its kind in Italy.
My work has taught me never to take anything for granted, to remain open to new stimuli and knowledge. So it is no coincidence that I love to discover places ignored by mass tourism, including small or large museums with few (or no) visitors.
Italy is one of the very few countries offering stratified aesthetic, cultural, and social stimuli everywhere you look, leaving large and small traces that not even our ignorance or carelessness has been able to eradicate completely. My frequent visits to the Cassero per la Scultura in Montevarchi, my walks among the stands of Arte Fiera or of an antiques market, give me aesthetic pleasure and generate continuous comparisons and thoughts. In this respect, admiring something that is part of our cultural heritage or purchasing a work for one’s own collection are key aspects of our world-famous beauty and tradition.
One interesting – and highly neglected – place is the Parmeggiani Gallery in Reggio Emilia, a famous local antiques dealer’s home and shop, transformed into a museum after his death. A decaying house of wonders where the curious is found next to the masterpiece, authentic artworks next to fakes, all in a pseudo-Spanish renaissance building entered through a real 15th-century portal from Valencia.
On my non-stop pilgrimage, I find peace in Italian cemeteries: silent cities layered with the lives of those preceding us, offering an infinite heritage of small objects, epigraphs, architectures and majestic works that encompass all of the Long 19th Century.
From Cassero per la Scultura in Montevarchi, Arezzo