L’Accademia di Belle Arti Pietro Vannucci di Perugia nasced, second after Florence, as Accademia del Disegno founded in 1573 by painter Orazio Alfani and architect and mathematician Raffaele Sozi. Since 1901 it has been located in the ancient Convent of San Francesco al Prato, a prestigious place next to the Oratory of San Bernardino by Agostino di Duccio, which since 1974 has also been the exhibition venue for prestigious art collections, organized into three sections: Gipsoteca (or plaster gallery); Painting Gallery; Cabinet of Drawings and Prints. The first core of the collections was formed with the monumental Michelangelesque Plasters (Aurora, Day, Twilight, Night), casts from the Medici chapel in Florence within the complex of the Basilica of San Lorenzo, executed and donated in the sixteenth century by the Perugian Vincenzo Danti. In the Napoleonic era, works from suppressed religious companies entered the academic heritage, the first core of that art collection which would become the National Gallery of Umbria. After the Unification of Italy, the Academy was a guide and artistic engine of creativity in Umbria and increased its collections with donations from entities and private individuals, especially artists and academicians. After a closure due to the 1997 earthquake, the Museum of the Academy was re-set up in the same venue following modern and rational criteria: it exhibits over two hundred works from its collection with the same organization into Plasters, Paintings, Drawings and Prints and provides spaces for temporary exhibitions. Among the plasters, exceptional for workmanship and variety, stand out the gigantic Hercules Farnese, The Three Graces by Antonio Canova, an original copy donated by the artist, The Laocoön, The Shepherd Boy by Bertel Thorvaldsen, The Boxer Damosseno by Canova, Amor and Psyche. Among the paintings, the Self-portrait with parrot by Mariano Guardabassi stands out, along with paintings by Annibale Brugnoli, Domenico Bruschi, Armando Spadini, Mario Mafai, Alberto Burri, Gerardo Dottori.
Information about the Museum of the Academy of Fine Arts
Piazza San Francesco al Prato,
Perugia (Perugia)
biblioteca@abaperugia.org
https://www.abaperugia.org/
Source: MIBACT
