1 July ore 12:00 – 12:30 CEST
Archivio Arte Contemporanea
329 4828149
https://www.stefanogiovanazzi.eu
info@stefanogiovanazzi.eu
Andrea Benoni and Stefano Giovanazzi: Redefining utopia, refining utopia
2 July ore 18:00 – 18:30 CEST
From here, to infinity
Archivio Arte Contemporanea
329 4828149
https://www.stefanogiovanazzi.eu
info@stefanogiovanazzi.eu
Guided tour of Palazzo Savioli-Antonini-Monte, now Fondazione Artieri 1852
23 June ore 18:30 – 19:30 CEST
Andrea Benoni will guide us in discovering Palazzo Savioli-Antonini-Monte, today owned by the Artieri Foundation 1852. Visitors will have the opportunity to explore the courtyard and some rooms of the palace, walk through corridors and balconies, and see what the Savioli, Antonini, and Monte families saw during the times they lived in the palace. Together, we will trace the historical events of the building by reading this brief essay by Giuseppe Costisella, a renowned Trentino historian and essayist, author of numerous well-regarded monographs dedicated to local history, architecture, and traditions of the Trentino region. His research has particularly focused on historic buildings, noble families, institutions, and the ancient dialects of Trentino-Alto Adige.
« The Savioli and Monte houses in Rovereto
In the narrow streets of the city center, so full of charm, many houses attract the attention of passersby due to their architectural beauty and the grace of the worked stones that adorn them. Particularly noteworthy for the testimony they provide of distant events and for the memories they hold of ancient families are the two contiguous houses now marked with numbers 1 and 5 on Via della Terra, located to the right of those proceeding from Piazza S. Marco towards the Tower.
Although they completely differ in their external appearance today, they originally had a common origin and, for several years, also shared the same function. This was until Gasparo Savioli bought the complex of existing buildings from the merchant Oliviero Olivieri, as described in the deed of May 24, 1564, by notary Marco Porta: “a house covered with tiles with an apothecary’s shop, a storeroom, chambers, underground vaults, a courtyard, in the district of La Campanella, bordering the common road in front, behind the walls of the land of Roverè, on the side towards Trento Pietro Saibante and Via Consortale, and on the other side the heirs of Gaspare Trentini.”
The agreed price for Ragnese was 1,350. Gaspare paid part of it in cash and part in silk fabrics called “damaschi rasi e ormesini.” This reveals the type of activity carried out by the buyer. In fact, the Savioli family, originally from Bardolino and established in Rovereto since the second half of the 1400s, is rightly credited with introducing the art of weaving to Rovereto, which in turn gave an impulse to other activities, particularly dyeing. Thanks to favorable conditions—such as the abundant availability of water for industries and its geographical position for trade—Rovereto became a leading center that attracted wealthy entrepreneurs from all over, along with a large number of skilled workers and artisans. These collectively gave Rovereto society its distinctive character—open to progress, civil development, and culture—that found its best expression in the 18th century.
In 1562, Gasparo, together with his brothers Donato and Giovanni, was made noble of the Holy Roman Empire for his merits in the industrial field, and Emperor Ferdinand I also granted him a noble coat of arms. Shortly after, he remodeled the house he had just purchased to suit his business, placing the family crest in a key position above the main door of the larger building (via della terra n. 5). This house, enhanced by the presence of a charming balcony, has remained almost unchanged to this day. The house at number 1 was instead one story high, while on the ground floor, each had looms working tirelessly to produce precious fabrics destined for German merchants.
Unchanged through the centuries is also the portico located between the two houses, now called the “Scala della Torre,” from which one descends into Piazza delle Erbe. In the past, however, when the “terra di Roverè” was still enclosed by Venetian walls that extended in a straight line from the porticos to the bastion of the Trivio alley, the portico was a communal passage that allowed access to the houses built against the walls and to the rear part of those facing the Church of S. Marco; it was called “pontirola sotto la chiesa di S. Marco” or also “introlo” or “androna,” often accompanied by the names of various owners of the houses—Saibanti, Savioli, Sbardellati, etc. The Venetian walls, which passed where the staircase leading down to the square now begins, formed an impassable barrier. Beyond it, exactly where the now-constructed Piazza delle Erbe and Piazza Malfatti are, there was a “cesura” (a break or gap) belonging to the Convent of the Carmelites of S. Maria.
The industrial activity, so well managed by Gaspare, was not continued by his two sons: Federico, who dedicated himself to commerce and moved to Nuremberg, and Gian Nicolò, who graduated in law and practiced as a lawyer in Rovereto. The only surviving son, named Gasparo like his grandfather, worsened the family estate with debts and, dying still young in 1647, left his wife Aquilina Eccaro the heavy task of arranging and adequately dowries for their five daughters born from their marriage. The widow succeeded in this task, naturally resorting to additional debts. Of those daughters, two, Francesca and Diodata, married in Rovereto: the first to the doctor Antonio Folgarait, the second to the noble Francesco Fontana, captain of Castel Penede; Camilla in Riva with the doctor Alessandro Salvadori, and Angelina and Elena with two notaries from Mantua, Antonio Tomasi and Francesco Valestra. Aquilina had to struggle a lot not only to gather the money but also, for the daughters married in Mantua, to transfer it to that city. At that time, money, valued for its silver and gold content, was a scarce commodity. Transporting it from one place to another also involved some risks, as well as expenses. Rovereto had to import wheat from Verona and Mantua and could not offer silk or wine to the producing countries. To meet the payment deadlines for the dowries of her daughters married in Mantua, Aquilina had to resort to an unusual expedient: entrusting a tenant of Volano with two pairs of oxen to be driven and sold in that city.
Aquilina’s successive acts of sale were now aimed at settling the many debts by selling the properties as opportunities arose. On March 9, 1678, in an act by notary Bernardino Benvenuti de’ Chiusole, the house now marked as number 1 was sold to Don Giovanni Monte, and it was described as follows: “a house located in the Piazza di San Marco, also known as the Torre, which borders on one side Nicolò Andreotti, in front the Imperial Road, behind partly to Andreotti and partly to the courtyard, on the other side the selling sisters with the large house, below the canal belonging to the sold house with the deep canal which remains to the Savioli sisters.”
From that moment, with the separation of the two houses, that branch of the Savioli family, which was about to become extinct, also lost all interest. Their old house was later transferred to Dr. Folgarait, Aquilina’s son-in-law, and around the mid-1700s, to the merchant Giuseppe Battisti of Mori; gradually, until the year 1884, when it was transferred to the Property of the Society of Mutual Assistance of Artisans of Rovereto as a bequest from the philanthropist Enrico Antonini, as recalled by the plaque mounted on the façade, right above the old family coat of arms.
The buyer of house number 1, with the deed dated April 1, 1679, by notary Pietro Malinverno, subsequently sold it to his brother Valentino. The price of 900 Ràgnesi was paid with money coming from the dowry of his wife Elisabetta dal Rì, from Mori. This is the moment when the house underwent a radical transformation that clearly distinguished it from the old Savioli house, of which it had been a lesser part until then.
She adorns herself with the beautiful portal with the coat of arms adopted by ‘Valentino Monte and with the inscription:
SOMMI DEI PRINCIPISQUE TUTUS GRATIA
The legend, perhaps intentionally cryptic, might lead one to believe that the Monte house had enjoyed the right of asylum, but it is known that in Rovereto such a privilege was granted only to the palace built in the 16th century by Baldessar Trautson in Borgo S. Caterina (now via Garibaldi no. 82). It is certain, however, that no one fleeing justice ever sought refuge there. Therefore, the inscription should be understood as an expression of gratitude to Providence for the possessions acquired, on the part of a man who respected the laws and civil ordinances. The new owner compensates for the limited space by adding additional floors and arranging the interior in a practical manner, where the layout of the rooms and the decorative details of stuccoes and wrought iron grilles contribute to creating an environment that displays a pronounced love for beauty, surpassing the needs that a wealthy family could then desire.
Who was Valentino Monte and what position did he hold in the Rovereto environment of his time? His father Antonio, known as Zuane Monte, moved to Rovereto from Cornè di Brentonico in the early 1600s, and for many years he successfully practiced commerce, running a shop in Rialto Square. Of his three children, the eldest named Giovanni became a priest, serving as an assistant to the archpriest of Rovereto, and from 1676 onwards, he also obtained the benefice of the church of S. Carlo, attached to the Convent of the Clarisses founded by Beata Giovanna. He accumulated a significant estate of tithes and fixed assets, which after his death in 1713, intestate, led to a long dispute among his heirs. The second daughter, Lucia, married the legal expert Pace Francesco Ceniga, who received a dowry of 1,500 florins (about 10-15 million lire today) from her brothers, according to the deed dated June 16, 1675, by notary Bernardino Benvenuti. Finally, Valentino, who like his father initially practiced successful commerce and increased his wealth, sought to rise in social prestige through honorary appointments. He served for some time as the administrator of the Rovereto Gymnasium founded in 1675, and later directed the postal service of Rovereto and Torbole. He also obtained the rank of officer in the town militias. In 1704, during the War of Spanish Succession, holding the rank of lieutenant, he intervened and succeeded in freeing Antonio Dossi of Cornè, who was detained at Rovereto Castle and had been arrested for suspected dealings with the enemy during the French invasion the previous year. Monte, in order to achieve this goal more easily, found it appropriate to “make a donation to a notable person of twenty yards of velvet and money,” and his fellow townsman Dossi, upon being freed, committed to repay him. (Act of February 10, 1704, notary Gio Francesco Turrini).
While Valentino’s ambitions achieved significant satisfaction in every field, his greatest desire to see his descendants continue was disappointed. From his marriage, he had only two daughters: Lucia (1678 – 1750), who married Giacomo Cristoforo Hinitz (1665 – 1751) in 1705 and had descendants, and Teresa, who married Dr. Antonio Chiusole in 1719 but had no children.
Now, the origin of the coat of arms adorning the portal of that Monte house remains to be understood. It did not, in fact, come to Valentino along with a noble diploma, although he was designated as noble in various notarial acts. Its characteristics show that it was granted by a Palatine Count: a dignitary who, by imperial delegation, had the authority not only to appoint notaries and legitimize illegitimate children but also to enable deserving individuals, based on their condition, to use a coat of arms for their dignity. During that time, a multitude of such honors was bestowed upon many Rovereto families by Bartolomeo Pizzini (1644–1714), authorized by a diploma from Leopold I, dated August 17, 1770. Perini lists as many as 26 grants of coats of arms attributed by Pizzini through notarial acts, between 1690 and 1714, to as many families. However, the Monte family does not appear in this group. But one cannot believe that Palatine Count Pizzini was inactive in granting coats of arms between 1670 and 1690 without paying attention to the ambitions of Rovereto merchants.
It is rather legitimate to suppose that in those years he directly issued the diploma without any trace of it remaining in a notarial deed, as will be the case from 1690 onwards. But even if it is not known who conferred it upon him, the use of the coat of arms by the Monte must have been entirely legal. It also appears in his secret will of December 14, 1718, which he claims to have written by his own hand, “corroborated by my seal, in which is impressed a shield with a lamb and above it two stars, and above the shield two uppercase letters V and M”; a will that he entrusted to notary G. B. Mascotti to be published after his death. He resorted to this measure because he had left his daughter Teresa only the legitimate share, reserving the other three-quarters for his daughter Lucia, married to Hinitz. Evidently, he must have been opposed to the marriage Teresa was about to enter into with Dr. Antonio Chiusole, for which a dispensation from Rome for third-degree kinship was invoked. However, the marriage took place two months later and was celebrated in the church of Madonna del Monte, with Dr. Gio Felice Ceniga and Cristoforo Hinitz as witnesses—one being a cousin, the other a brother-in-law of the bride. After returning to his previous decision, on March 17, 1727, Valentino dictated a new will to the same notary Mascotti, in which he designated his two daughters as equal heirs.
In subsequent divisions, the house passed into the ownership of the Hinitz family. Members of this family, originally from Silesia, had held positions in the magistracy in Innsbruck, where Giacomo Cristoforo was born. In 1686, he came to Rovereto as the procurator of the Folkamer and Seitel house from Nuremberg, and he immediately obtained citizenship there. Like his father-in-law Valentino Monte, he was part of the urban militia, in which he reached the rank of lieutenant of the white armor company. From the Rovereto branch of this family, several notable individuals emerged, including the lawyer Cristoforo (1737–1790), who, together with his sister Lucia, obtained a noble diploma from the Holy Roman Empire in 1765, with the predicate of Gutentall and the coat of arms featuring a rampant lion. It is thanks to these two Hinitz siblings that the magnificent portal of the house has preserved its original appearance, with the coat of arms of their great-grandfather Valentino Monte.
Fondazione Artieri 1852
Since 1852, the Artieri Foundation has preserved and renewed a long tradition of solidarity, participation, and civic engagement. Originally founded as a mutual aid society, it has endured through generations and social changes, maintaining a strong connection with the community, with the aim of promoting cultural, social, and collective interest initiatives. Its history tells of a heritage of values that still today guide the activities of the Foundation.
Archivio Arte Contemporanea
329 4828149
https://www.stefanogiovanazzi.eu
info@stefanogiovanazzi.eu
Andrea Benoni / Stefano Giovanazzi: Archivi di Comunità. Acts of transforming personal memories into shared memories
23 June ore 16:00 – 16:30 CEST
Presentation by the curators of the first edition of “Community Archives”:
Thirty-two encounters with artists, collectors, curators, art historians, archivists;
Inviting twenty-six institutions;
An exhibition in Rovereto;
Twelve guided tours of archives, foundations, and museums;
A logo and a manifesto designed by the artist Maurizio Nannucci.
Rovereto • Trento • Bolzano • Merano • Verona • Altivole
June 23 – July 31, 2026
The guests of the scheduled working days for the first edition of Community Archives will present specific study cases dedicated to the theme:
Acts of transforming personal memories into shared memories
Presentation
Community archives perhaps represent the last ‘utopia,’ a precious, complex, and at the same time fragile heritage, bearing witness to the ‘becoming’ of cultures, identities, and differences, of generations of living beings. Unlike big data concealed within data centers—collections of personal and collective data so vast and complex that they cannot be processed and decoded with traditional methods but only through algorithms and artificial intelligence, primarily for private use and exploitation—the utopia of community archives offers a different history of ideas.
Libraries and archives are seemingly composed of collections of material objects, such as printed documents, ancient and modern books, printed or handwritten music, sound or video recordings, graphic documents, drawings, engravings, photographs, artworks, collages, sculptures, digital works, technical inventions, objects from Wunderkammer—those theatrical rooms of curiosities (like the two-headed calf housed in the Civic Museum of Rovereto until the 1970s)—or minor materials: invitations, leaflets, ephemeral items. However, they always revolve around thoughts and reflections—by authors, publishers, producers, and disseminators—primarily: ‘immaterial objects,’ utopias in the strict sense. All together, they testify to the ‘wealth’ but also the ‘poverty’ of an impermanent social fabric in space and time, contaminated by multiple influences of nature and by cultural, historical, artistic, scientific, and technological factors. The variety of documents and testimonies that have reached us—preserved as genealogies, manuscripts, photographs, letters, maps, artworks, and everyday objects—tactile, visual, olfactory, auditory, and gustatory—allows the intertwining of very different disciplines. From this diversity, ‘community archives’ derive density and immeasurable potential.
Validation
The approach to an ever-expanding array of documents highlights the urgency of redefining the concepts of competence and validity, and at the same time calls for an integrated approach to the theory of knowledge. Private, unique collections represent the condensation of countless, indefinable memories and personal and interpersonal passions—materialization of Borges’ ‘Library of Babel’ in memory—while public libraries and archives play a role in preservation, organization, and providing easier access to mostly indexed documents. Documentary and testimonial resources often allow us to reconstruct personal and collective stories in great detail and with remarkable precision, which would otherwise be difficult to comprehend. The complexity of the knowledge contained in these archives requires ongoing personal and collective efforts—such as verifying sources, validating and attributing information, reading and interpreting—as well as continuous work of transcription, sometimes translation. When applied with the necessary care and attention, validation, attribution, protection, organization, study, and enhancement are tasks that future generations will be able to continue, even in contexts we cannot yet foresee but can only imagine.
Complexity beyond rituality
Community archives define the points of contact between disciplines and knowledge, reflecting the plurality of identities, memories, and unique practices that shape various social bodies. They are not merely repositories of documents but dynamic spaces where history, sociology, anthropology, archival science, and cultural studies intertwine to reshape the world and interpret traces of life — from the earliest testimonies to the most recent, from the essential to the complex. Their complexity and heterogeneity become evident when interpretation for investigative work requires integrating methodologies and perspectives: from qualitative analysis to statistical management, from participatory engagement with multiple stakeholders in evaluating critical and interpretive positions, to improving conservation and restoration techniques often adapted to specific climatic and environmental needs. Moreover, those working with community archives must address how to represent the multiplicity of narratives [Data Visualization] and the safeguarding of both singular and collective memory, often fragmented or subject to manipulation, sometimes marginalized. Consider, for instance, the countless objects in collections and museums originating from formerly colonized countries, whose country of origin, creators, or communities that valued and exchanged them are unknown: these represent a kind of ‘history of technique and art without names or places,’ driven by political events, domination, theft, or sometimes by excessive zeal or the desire to preserve and safeguard objects from neglect, time, and natural decay. Multistrategy and multidisciplinary approaches are increasingly essential to attempt to restore a hypothetical zero point of the object of thought — the moment of its emergence on the horizon of events: rediscovering the object at its origin allows us to understand its power and definition (bestimmung), and to reawaken the specific ‘state of the art’ in which it was born and established. An inverse process to ritualization. One last remark: all tools of knowledge can be conceived as means of social and cultural empowerment. In a time of rapid change, community archives serve as spaces of resistance against homogenization, questioning the concept of identity, and require new forms of knowledge and approaches to coexist social history, science and technology, aesthetic practices, sensitivity, desire and passion, ethics, and solidarity.
Genealogy and iconology
Paraphrasing Michel Foucault, we can consider genealogy as the art of uncovering the origins and hidden histories behind interpersonal and institutional practices, revealing how the present results from complex, often unsuspected historical processes, sometimes subject to distortions. Genealogies play a fundamental role in community archives because they help trace and document isomorphic lines or historical fractures, natural and cultural dynamics. Through the collection and analysis of information evaluated using tools from semiotics, iconography, genetics, anthropology, and other complex disciplines, archives sometimes enable us to trace the unfolding of relational, familial, and community forms, as well as sedentary or migratory dynamics, along with changes in ideologies and thought trajectories. Critical analysis of genealogies allows us to reconfigure, confirm, or refute personal and collective memories, reinforcing the delicate approach needed when dealing with such a sensitive subject as the space-time dimension of vital dynamics: autonomy and belonging, distance and continuity across generations. Genealogies present themselves as an ‘field’ still waiting to be explored from various perspectives—historical, anthropological, sociological, demographic, urbanistic, architectural, geographic, and scientific. The sources for such genealogical research must include grand mythic narratives, religions, philosophies, linguistic theories, and theoretical positions—all ‘texts’ that have reached us in the form of hypotheses, stories, essays, catalogs, registers of births and deaths, marriage records, statistical data from censuses, notarial acts (property or sales), laws and regulations, as well as personal or collective archives, both public and private. Seen as a whole, these states of thought often appear opaque, arid, unproductive, sometimes insubstantial or even harmful or devastating—fertile ground for the ‘banality of evil’ as Hanna Arendt describes. However, when realigned, reread, and integrated, they can serve as sources for a generative grammar capable of opening new fields of investigation and new perspectives. Similarly, a reflection on iconology as an immaterial genealogy of images allows us to go beyond markedly ideological and teleological obstacles, approaching the mental and symbolic spaces where thoughts and behaviors take shape.
Reality and social behaviors
We can consider community archives and vast genealogical collections as true ‘zones of flow’ between the imaginary and the real (in the sense given by Jacques Lacan): fundamental stages that allow us to attempt to traverse the material and immaterial heritage of individuals and communities, whether more or less articulated, intersecting or overlapping. These zones of flow sometimes present themselves as inaccessible due to the presence of barriers and obstacles—real or metaphorical—while at other times they open up to new vantage points, revealing unexpected horizons, valleys, and expanses that come into our view and consequently generate further opportunities for reflection and interpretation. It is up to us, through our actions, to live these landscapes as battlegrounds, theaters of war, conflict zones—or rather, as places of utopian transit, coexistence, and material and immaterial growth. Even language, like any other process, can become a tool of offense or an expression of resentment, or it can be used to mediate, welcome, safeguard, or simply to bear witness to gratitude.
Knowledge and participation
Archives and libraries, because they regularly address issues related to the preservation and sharing of knowledge, also play an active role in transforming the social fabric: a key point is that access to culture, information, and thought in its many forms cannot be considered neutral. It requires, over time, a transformation of roles and skills, as well as an active and stimulating relational and spatial approach. Community engagement initiatives, events, and collaborative projects enable open dialogue between researchers and the community, citizens and institutions. They strengthen the sense of belonging, transparency, and participation in a democratic process—transforming personal memories into history.
To survey, share, and design
Everyone recognizes the potential of private archives—those of artists, researchers, historians, and writers: the challenge is to connect this promise of the future with a more open, widespread relational fabric, capable of creating opportunities for its “shaping.” A crucial task is to identify these collections of thoughts or material objects and invite each individual to participate in expanding the boundaries of their actions, sharing their knowledge to collaboratively design new scenarios.
Andrea Benoni
Andrea Benoni is president of the Artieri Foundation. Former mayor of Calliano (TN), he was president of the Vallagarina Artisans Association for many years, and is the creator and organizer of numerous craft fairs, exhibitions, and events dedicated to the history of violin making in Trentino.
Stefano Giovanazzi
A graduate of the Rovereto Teacher Training Institute (TN) and the Trento State Art Institute, he attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice in the early 1980s, where he graduated in Painting under the artist Emilio Vedova. Founder and curator of AAC Archivio Arte Contemporanea in Rovereto, he has been president of the Numero Civico cultural association since 1994. In over thirty years of activity, he has curated hundreds of events related to contemporary art and thought. He has collaborated numerous times with artists, musicians, and writers, with museums and cultural institutions, academies, and with governments and governmental institutions. He has worked with Mario Airò, Stefano Arienti, Vincenzo Cabiati, Andrea Crociani, Francesco Dal Bosco, Eva Marisaldi, Chiyoko Miura, Liliana Moro, Fabio Polvani, Luca Quartana, Andrea Rabbiosi, Federico Tanzi-Mira, Grazia Toderi, Marco Vaglieri, Vedova Mazzei, and Francesco Voltolina; He has curated exhibitions featuring works by Rita Ackermann, Richard Ambleton, John Currin, Bruce Elder, Joseph Kosuth, Sean Landers, Sherrie Levine, Raymond Pettibon, Richard Prince, Jim Shaw, Michael Snow, Bill Viola, and Jeffrey Wallace. He has curated events in collaboration with the Italian Senate, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities, the Canadian Embassy, the Vasco-Basque Government (Spain), the Instituto Cervantes de Cultura (Spain), the British Council (Great Britain), the French Ministry of Culture, the Institut Français (France), and the Goethe Institute (Germany). A genealogist, he is responsible for an extensive genealogical archive, „Trees and Leaves,“ which contains over a million genealogical positions.
Archivio Arte Contemporanea
329 4828149
https://www.stefanogiovanazzi.eu
info@stefanogiovanazzi.eu
Alessandro Armani: Memoriale Brion. Un capolavoro di Carlo Scarpa in un camposanto di paese
4 July ore 11:00 – 12:00 CEST
Not far from Treviso, Tomba Brion designed by Carlo Scarpa is an absolute masterpiece of modernism, Venetian art and oriental philosophies inspired by the theme of true love. Immersed in the Treviso countryside, this is a masterpiece of the 20th Century Architecture: A silent, peaceful and harmonious place where different cultures and religions are blending for a unique experience.
The Memoriale Brion, donated to FAI by Ennio and Donatella Brion, was commissioned in 1969 by their mother Onorina Brion Tomasin, in memory of the deceased husband, Giuseppe Brion, born in San Vito di Altivole, founder and owner of the Brionvega Firm, a leading company in the production of electronics design devices during the Second post-war period.
This is Carlo Scarpa’s last work, one of his most complex, original, significant and expensive creation. It was realized between 1970 and 1978, the year of the architect’s death in Japan.
The monumental funerary building is surrounded by the Treviso countryside, set against the Asolo’s Hills, on the edge of the city of San Vito D’Altivole and close to its small graveyard. The access is through a monumental entrance, called propylei, characterized by a scenic entrance in the shape of two intertwined circles, as a symbol of the conjugal love on which the whole project is based on. The whole area is a L-Shaped 2200 square meters, raised above the country floor and surrounded by an inclined wall, in order to allow the view of the surrounding landscape. Made of green meadows and furrowed by canals with water lilies, it is designed with geometric shapes reminiscent of Islamic paradises and Japanese gardens. There you can find four buildings. The building’s heart is the so-called arcosolio, a low arch-bridge made of a shimmering mantle of glass tiles with gold leaf behind, which protects the sarcophagi of the two spouses Giuseppe and Onorina Brion, symbolically inclined as if eternally are facing each other. On one side of the space stands, there is an isolated meditation pavilion on the water, specially placed in front of the arcosolio; on the other side, there are the so-called ‘’tomb of parents’’ and the ‘’chapel or temple’’ used for funeral ceremonies, which can also be accessed from the outside of the cemetery, surrounded by water and a garden of cypresses. Consequently, in a subdued and discreet space, on the border between the private memorial and the public cemetery, there is the Carlo Scarpa’s tomb, who wanted to be buried here and today hosts his wife Nini Lazzari and it was designed by their son Tobia (with Fabio Lombardo), also an architect.
The Memoriale Brion is a family cemetery, made by the beautiful mind of Carlo Scarpa, who here expresses himself with freedom of means and languages in an extraordinary virtuosity, synthesis and climax of his culture and experience connected to his sensibility and vision. Carlo Scarpa has given the shape and atmosphere of a large garden open to everyone, creating a place of silence, peace and harmony, pervaded by a deep sense of the sacred, where different cultures and religions blend together through architectures dense with sophisticated symbols and hidden references, in order to invite all visitors to a universal meditation on life and death with a memorable, unique and engaging experience.
Alessandro Armani
Born in Rovereto, a graduate in cultural heritage sciences, he has worked for the FAI – Italian Environment Fund since 2018, initially as director of Avio Castle, Avio, Trentino-Alto Adige. Since 2025, he has been responsible for the Foundation’s North-Eastern Heritage. He is also responsible for the FAI Operational Management – Brion Memorial, Altivole, Veneto, a mature work by Carlo Scarpa, and for Villa dei Vescovi, Torreglia, Veneto.
Archivio Arte Contemporanea
329 4828149
https://www.stefanogiovanazzi.eu
info@stefanogiovanazzi.eu
Roberto Antolini: Having a “stanza e mensa” [room and table] in Palazzo Pizzini in the mid-1700s: Giuseppe Felice Matteo Givanni, a priest/rationalist intellectual, and a dialect poet singer of the Rovereto silk era.
2 July ore 12:00 – 12:30 CEST
Giuseppe Felice Givanni was an 18th-century rationalist priest from Rovereto. He was also a poet, who in his short stories written in dialect verse (almost all still unpublished) narrates – in a playful and metaphorical way – life and especially the conflicts of the Roveretano silk age. Around the mid-18th century, he was the chaplain of the Pizzini family and tutor to the children of Baron Gian Giulio Pizzini (Gian Giacomo and Orazio, who would become important figures of their time). During the pastoral visit of the bishop to the Church of San Marco in 1750, Givanni explains that he has – for these services – a “room and table” in the Pizzini Palace.
Roberto Antolini, bibliography on the person
– Origine familiare e condizione sociale del sacerdote roveretano Giuseppe Felice Matteo Givanni, poeta dialettale (1722-1787). IN: Studi Trentini. Storia, A.92, 2013, n.2, p. 391-438
– La Musa sgrovia di Giuseppe Felice Givanni. IN: Atti della Accademia roveretana degli Agiati, 264 (2014) = ser.IX, vol. IV, A, fasc.1, p. 7-28
– El Prior el magneva giust dei fonghi: la Novela Dodese (1752) di Giuseppe Felice Givanni. IN: Il Furore dei libri, A.VI, marzo/giugno 2015, p.15-33
– Tracce “cimbre” nel Settecento roveretano. IN: Studi Trentini. Storia, A.96, 2017, n.2, p. 243-251
– Una famiglia nella storia del Borgo San Tommaso: i Givanni. IN: Verso il Brennero. Pergine, PubblistampaEdizioni, 2018, p.43-53
– Givanni, l’Accademico roveretano che scriveva in dialetto [podcast del 2026], IN Regiostoria, Ep.3 di Lo splendente Settecento roveretano, all’indirizzo internet: https://regiostoria.it/ep-3-givanni-laccademico-roveretano-che-scriveva-in-dialetto/
Roberto Antolini
Roberto Antolini, a graduate in philosophy, librarian, and archivist, was born in Trento in 1950. In addition to ‘Towards the Brenner’, he published the novel ‘Ivan the Terrorist’ (Robin Editions, 2009), and edited the volume ‘Explosive, Sharp, and Bright Books: Artistic Vanguards and the Book between Futurism and the Artist’s Book’ (Nicolodi, 2005).
Attachment
Origine familiare e condizione sociale del sacerdote roveretano Giuseppe Felice Matteo GivanniDownload
Archivio Arte Contemporanea
329 4828149
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Michelangelo Lupo: The restoration of the main floor of Palazzo Pizzini. Guided tour
2 July ore 11:00 – 12:00 CEST
Michelangelo Lupo and Amedeo Chizzola will accompany us in this preview of the recently restored rooms on the noble floor of Palazzo Pizzini in Rovereto, “the most beautiful Rococo palace in the Trentino area”: the central salon, the decorations and stuccoes that run along the walls and ceiling, the large central painting, and the Hall of Mirrors overlooking Piazza del Grano. Amedeo Chizzola, owner of the spaces on the noble floor open to the public during Archivi di Comunità, strongly advocated for the restoration of this important cultural heritage site.
Michelangelo Lupo
Michelangelo Lupo, born in Turin in 1948, completed classical studies and graduated in architecture from the Polytechnic of Turin in 1972. Between 1972 and 1974 he studied paleography and diplomatics at the State Archives of Turin and specialized in Art History at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Padua in 1975. An official of the Autonomous Province of Trento and responsible for the protection of historical and artistic heritage (1975-1983), he was director of the restoration laboratory of the Province of Trento (1977-1983) and director of the Provincial Art Museum of Trento (1979-1983). Between 1983 and 1998 he was a consultant for the auction house Christie’s, Rome branch. Since 1984, he has had architectural design studios in Trento and Rome and carries out restoration work in Italy, Egypt, Libya, and Jordan. He is the author of numerous museum installation designs and art-historical exhibitions. He is also the author of numerous art-historical publications, primarily on architecture and the decorative arts from the 15th to the 18th centuries.
Archivio Arte Contemporanea
329 4828149
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