Trento, painted city

Photo exhibition

exhibition

The exhibition takes its start from the book “Trento città dipinta” |  “Trento, painted city. Exterior wall decorations from the Middle Ages to the present day" which was recently published by Edizioni Grafiche Antiga.

The book, conceived and edited by Ezio Chini, Salvatore Ferrari and Beppo Toffolon, dedicated to the extraordinary mural pictorial heritage of the city of Trento, containing new historical and archival investigations on the main buildings and a complete census of the decorations made between the medieval and contemporary ages, is an indispensable tool for their knowledge, preservation and enhancement.

Trento is one of the most beautiful art cities in Italy, and one of its distinguishing features is that it is a "painted city": it still retains many ancient fresco decorations on the facades of houses and buildings, in particular in Piazza Duomo and Via Belenzani.

The Italian Touring Club Guides describe it as a city of noble and severe appearance, rich in Roman memories and superb Romanesque and Renaissance monuments; they extol its urban image of severe beauty in its medieval and Renaissance architecture with a background between the Venetian and the Nordic area.

The custom of painting facades was inspired by examples from Veneto, especially in the 15th and 16th centuries, in Venice, Verona, Treviso, Feltre and many smaller towns. The 16th century was the golden century, when the most important facades were decorated on the occasion of the Council (1545-1563).

The volume and the exhibition "Trento città dipinta", in addition to documenting the preciousness of this pictorial heritage, are intended to call attention to its fragility and the need for care and restoration, for public and private interventions, which in some cases are urgent, in order to preserve such surfaces that strongly characterize our city.

Carried out with the financial support of Trento Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Handicrafts and Agriculture (CCIAA) and the Trento Cassa Rurale Foundation, and hosted at the CCIAA's prestigious Palazzo Roccabruna, the exhibition can be visited from 17 December 2022 to 28 January 2023.

Organization: Italia Nostra Sezione trentina
location: Palazzo Roccabruna, via SS. Trinità 24 - Trento
curated by: Manuela Bladracchi, Ezio Chini, Beppo Toffolon
exhibition project: Manuela Baldracchi, Aronne Mattedi, Beppo Toffolon, Silvana Zadra
graphic project: Nadia Groff
arrangement: Lorenzo Nainer, Francesca Giovannini, Daniele Simoncelli
photos: Ezio Chini, Nicola Eccher, Gianni Zotta, Giovanni Battista Unterveger