“To know a historian he must know how to “see”. Therefore he must put museums before libraries and direct viewing of works before photographs.”
It is one of the many teachings that Mina Gregori passed on to her numerous students, some of whom became important art historians and critics.
And it is just one of the reasons why yesterday the President of the Region Eugenio Giani awarded her the Golden Pegasus, the highest recognition of the Tuscan body, thus celebrating one of the most illustrious art scholars of international fame, born in Cremona but now Florentine by adoption.
“I hand over the golden Pegasus to a great art scholar, who taught how to educate the eye to read the work of art, to recognize and love beauty – said Giani -, to convey new opinions and sometimes difficult for the world of culture and art which lives its excellence in Florence and Tuscany”. At the ceremony in Palazzo Strozzi Sacrati, Professor Gregori was accompanied by her niece Sandra Bandera, and the deputy mayor of the Municipality of Florence Alessia Bettini. Present among the authorities was the president of the Longhi Foundation, Cristina Acidini, who took over from Mina Gregori, now honorary president. The other niece Maria Cristina Bandera is also connected on video. “I am very grateful – said Mina Gregori, who turned one hundred years old in March – your presence demonstrates all the affection and esteem you have for me. We all have the same ideals and we all aspire to the good of our country. Again Thank you”.
Mina Gregori, direct heir to the lessons of Roberto Longhi, has ranged with creativity and intelligence in the worlds of figurative art, literature and music which, she claims, “fills life and is the most complete form of all the arts”. Director of over one hundred exhibitions around the world, her one on Caravaggio and the Caravaggio artists remains memorable, hence the nickname “the lady of Caravaggio”. The exhibition on the seventeenth century in Florence and the one on the Renaissance in Athens are also fundamental. A scholar of international stature, she remained linked to Florence, where she taught history of medieval and modern art at the university.
