Villa Melchiorri. Actually no, Villa Melchiori. Melchiori or Melchiorri? How many “r”s? How to pronounce? “The decorator Pedroni reported on the façade, with sinuous lettering, the name of “Melchiorri Floricoltore”, making an error that was perpetuated in subsequent bibliographies”. In short, the correct version would be Villa Melchiori.
The question is resolved by Lucio Scardino (critic and art historian from Ferrara), in a pamphlet that will be presented tomorrow, at 5pm, in the Ariostea Library. The small volume, entitled ‘Villa Melchiori. The masterpiece of Liberty Ferrarese’ was released on the occasion of the 120th anniversary of the construction of the villa in Viale Cavour, a true manifesto of Art Nouveau in Ferrara, inaugurated in the summer of 1904. In particular, it was 30 July 1904, when the gates opened and the city, for a moment, became a little more Parisian. The event will be remembered on the occasion of the end of the restoration of the villa, by the architect Marcello Bosi, aided by a team that also includes the artist-engineer Marcello Carrà. On 30 July 2024 Villa Melchiori will open its doors to citizens again: it will be possible to visit not only the garden, but also the interiors, and above all it will be possible to admire the facade illuminated by a video-mapping show. We will therefore also talk about the clients of the company: Ferdinando Melchiori and Giuseppina Marchi, flower growers who in the autumn of 1903 entrusted the young engineer Ciro Contini with the task of constructing the building “then embellished on the façade – writes Scardino – by the ornate cement by Arrigo Minerbi and wrought iron forged by Augusto De Paoli”. The result? “Styles taken from the linearism of French and Belgian Art Nouveau”, immersed in an “imaginative perspective layout and a savory, almost sensual plastic softness”. A set of converging and divergent dichotomies, the ever new yet ancient villa will always be a Tiber island in the river of Viale Cavour, as masterfully represented by Marcello Carrà in Scardino’s book. The booklet, in fact, collects and anthologizes a series of pictorial and graphic representations inspired by the building, with a final dedication to the late writer Roberto Pazzi, “who Villa Melchiori saw countless times from his mother’s house but without ever entering”.
Francesco Franchella
