Percorsi di architettura armena a Roma Le missioni di studio e la mostra fotografica del 1968 tra premesse critiche e prospettive di ricerca

Abstract

In 1966 a team of Italian scholars coordinated by Géza de Francovich inaugurated a series of study trips to the historic regions of Armenia, with the aim of collecting extensive photographic documentation of medieval churches and monasteries. The first result of these study trips was the photographic exhibition Architettura medievale armena (Rome, June-July 1968), a pioneering event that helped in spreading knowledge of Armenian art and architecture among a broader public in Italy and that became a springboard for new research projects in the eastern Mediterranean territories. This paper provides a critical reconstruction of the context and circumstances that led to the organisation of this exhibition.

Architecture of Medieval Armenia as a Field of Research for Russian and Italian Scholars: Comparative Analyses of the Historiography

“…Over the course of two years, a considerable body of material was collected in all these historical territories of medieval Armenia (Bevilacqua and Gasbarri 2020, p. 30). The subsequent photographic exhibition on Armenian architectural monuments, which was mounted in 1968 at the Palazzo di Venezia in Rome and then moved to the Palazzo Ducale in Venice in July of the following year, left a strong impression on its visitors (Bevilacqua and Gasbarri 2020). A catalog was published that included an introductory article by de Frankovich, along with essays on Armenian art, medieval architects, and the features of Armenian architecture and the periods of its development, as well as annotations and plans of the area's 100 most important monuments (Breccia Fratadocchi et al 1968).…”