Perugia editorial team
PERUGIA – The Albertini Collection returns to Perugia – a valuable collection of documents and parchment covers dating back to the 14th and 15th centuries – of which the Perugia Foundation purchased the lots, 153 in total, in an auction held in Paris in the evening of 21 June, under the Mirabaud Mercier auction house and after specific authorization from the Archives of France. The hammer price was 305 thousand euros, plus auction rights. The valuable documentary coverings, finely decorated and painted, belonged to registers of podestà, captains of the people, judges and mayors of the Municipality of Perugia. Many of these depict the Griffin or the emblems of the magistrates elected to administer the city.
In the mid-nineteenth century, the jurist Luigi Albertini purchased the collection in Rome from Josef Spithorer, a Peruvian antiquarian and diplomat in Paris. Later, Albertini took the entire treasure to France, where it has been preserved to this day by his heirs. The precious blankets had been removed from the ancient registers of the judicial administration, still kept in the State Archives of Perugia. Finally, with their return to Umbria and after a careful analysis, it will be possible to relocate the various elements and reconstruct the documentary unity.
The goods purchased by the Foundation have great cultural, artistic, historical and heraldic value. Furthermore, through their study, it will be possible to reconstruct the faces of some of the magistrates involved in the judicial administration of Perugia. In recent days, several experts and art historians, also through public appeals, had requested the purchase of the collection by a public or private body.
«The success of the Parisian auction is a reason for great pride and satisfaction for us – the words of Alcide Casini, president of the Perugia Foundation – The economic commitment of our institution was important, but even more important is the value of this collection for the culture and identity of the territory. Albertini’s collection has an enormous symbolic and scientific significance and will allow the many researchers in the sector to delve deeper into the history of the city with new tools. Spending our efforts to bring such a heritage home was a duty and is fully consistent with our mission as custodians and promoters of art and culture.”
