Riccardo Helg and Federico Morgagni, independent candidates on the Democratic Party list, intervened, with a jointly signed note, to express strong doubts about the management of Forlì’s cultural heritage by the Zattini Council.
“Last week some precious works from the Pinacoteca of Palazzo del Merenda, including two canvases by Guercino, were transferred to Cento. The news took many people from Forlì by surprise and aroused well-founded fears among workers and citizens regarding the methods of handling the works, which were transported to the streets without protection, a very serious fact which put their integrity at risk” they explain .
“The lack of transparency in communication on cultural issues has been a characterizing feature of the Zattini Council in recent years, but we would have expected citizens to be at least informed of the duration of the loan, indicated in the administrative documents until May 2025, but which could be extended much further if, as announced, this operation serves to prevent these works from ending up in storage – continue Riccardo Helg and Federico Morgagni -. The fact that the news, which already appeared in the Ferrara press at the beginning of March, was kept secret in the city until the end of April should make us reflect on the casual use of our museum collections, now reduced to a deposit for loans and transfers”.
“In fact, we ask ourselves what heritage should be valorised, in the intentions of the organisers, by the Cento exhibition – they continue – . Certainly not the one preserved in Palazzo del Merenda, where to date it is not known the accessibility to the ancient collections of the Saffi Library, including the precious Piancastelli Collections, and to the museum collections, which cannot be moved and which will have to live with the risks of safety and the limitations of use imposed by the imminent construction site. Not the one exhibited at San Domenico, where information material on the art gallery has been lacking for years and where the layouts of large exhibitions often discourage, with panels and barriers, visits to the permanent collections. And even less so that of Palazzo Romagnoli, where the action of dismantling one of the most beautiful museums in the city and transferring the Verzocchi Collection proceeds inexorably, in defiance of the protests and mobilization initiatives, even recent ones, and with a waste of public resources estimated in millions of euros”.
“Even in this case the dominant imperative is the absolute lack of clarity, as shown by the promotion of free opening on the first Sunday of the month – conclude Helg and Morgagni -. Why not tell the people of Forlì that Sunday 5 May could be one of the last opportunities (if not the last) to freely visit the twentieth century collections, destined by Zattini and Melandri for a probable placement in indefinite storage, given the continuous delay of the works on Palazzo Albertini?”.
 on the valorization of Forlì’s cultural heritage: “Many unknowns and no transparency from the Zattini council”){kind=link}