An important donation of cartoons for the mosaic was offered by the Signorini family to the State Academy of Fine Arts in Ravenna. The cartoons were created by Renato Signorini who was a student, then teacher and subsequently director of the Mosaic School of Ravenna from 1934 to 1976. The donation will be exhibited at the Sea from today (the inauguration was yesterday afternoon) until 2 June and is the first initiative among those dedicated to celebrating the hundred years of the Ravenna Mosaic School which was inaugurated in February 1924 by the director Vittorio Guaccimanni and directed by the famous mosaicist Giuseppe Zampiga.
Born in Ravenna in 1908, Renato Signorini graduated in Decorative Art at the Art Institute of Florence and in Mosaic at the Academy of Fine Arts of Ravenna. In the 1930s he collaborated extensively with Cafiero Tuti, professor at the Academy of Fine Arts of Ravenna , and became, until his death in 1999, one of the greatest mosaic artists in Ravenna.
Signorini created very faithful reproductions of local mosaics and the donation expanded the already rich collection of cartoons in the possession of the Academy through unique documents that reproduced ancient works. They are documents of extraordinary importance because they reproduce, tile by tile and in life-size, the mosaics of the UNESCO monuments of Ravenna.
In fact, not only was the image reproduced but also the colors, in the most faithful way to the original through in-depth research on the colors of each particular moment.
The exhibition is curated by Giovanni Gardini, president and teacher of the Association of Italian Ecclesiastical Museums and a well-known expert on the subject. These are the times to visit the exhibition: Tuesday – Saturday 9.00 – 18.00, Sunday and holidays 10 – 19. Closed on Mondays. The ticket office will close one hour early
Rosanna Ricci
