On Saturday 6 June 2026, at 5 pm, the 3° EPISODE of the 2026 CULTURAL CALENDAR OF THE CAGIANELLI CENTRE FOR THE 20th CENTURY will be held, entitled COLLECTING AND TEACHING: "From the Little Flowers of St. Francis to the Life of Mary: Paths of Spiritualism between Tuscany, Umbria and Belgium", promoted by the Cagianelli Centre for the 20th Century, as part of PISA MUSEUM PATHS, with the patronage of: Tuscany Region, Municipality of Pisa, with the contribution of the FONDAZIONE PISA, ON THE OCCASION OF THE VIII CENTENARY OF SAINT FRANCIS, in 140° from the birth of Enrico Cagianelli.
Four episodes have been planned, characterised by conferences, guided tours and exhibition events, and an extraordinary opening, during which pictorial, graphic and sculptural works preserved at the Cagianelli Centre for the ‘900 will be visible to the public, the result of a process of acquisitions without exceptions towards a practically unknown hemisphere of the twentieth century, within which plays a decisive role that spiritualism which between Tuscany and Umbria tends to be constantly contaminated with the disturbing and frightening breezes of Belgian symbolism lavished in the first half of the century by the brilliant and incessant fervor of Charles Doudelet, to then face new goals, coinciding with the affirmation of renewed sacred icons, within which the Madonna draws the most varied declinations, bordering on the secular maternity ward, while the Nativity Scenes are populated by characters who overshadow the myths of modernity, from the myriad of wayfarers proposed primarily by the poetic imagination of Gabriele d'Annunzio, to the folkloristic epic in vogue in Art Deco.
Thanks to the re-proposition of very rare and precious iconographic testimonies, it will be possible to present the most hidden reasons for a sacred representation, so effectively alternative to the usual ritual target, with the aim of reconstructing the still underlying and mysterious plots between the biographical story of some interpreters of twentieth-century mysticism and the dominant role of Charles Doudelet between Tuscany and Umbria, having moved from the legendary Antignano residence of Villa Medusa to a villa in the Narni countryside, and then collaborated in the 1920s with the Foligno publisher Giuseppe Argentieri.
Matteo Fochessati, Wolfsonian Curator - PalazzoDucale, Foundation for Culture, Genoa, will be the protagonist of this Third Episode, coinciding with the conference/exhibition entitled From Futurism to the Italian Twentieth Century: Madonnas in Comparison, during which three pictorial and graphic works will be presented to the public, differently central to the exhibition itinerary of the Cagianelli Centre: Nativity, 1920-1922, oil on panel, by Aldo Carpi (Milan, 1886 - 1973); Madonna and Child, plaster bas-relief, 1930-1932, by Enrico Cagianelli (Perugia, 1886 - Gubbio, 1938); Antonia, ca. 1961, mixed media by RAM (Ruggero Alfredo Michahelles) (Florence, 1898 - 1976).
Info: francesca.cagianelli@gmail.com
https://centrocagianelliperil900.wordpress.com/
cell. +39 392 6025703
