Il museo che non c’è. Arte collezionismo, gusto antiquario nel Palazzo degli Studi di Bari (1875-1928), catalogo della mostra (Bari, Università degli Studi Aldo Moro, 28 febbraio-24 aprile 2020)

The volume accompanies the exhibition Il Museo che non c’è. Arte, collezionismo, gusto antiquario nel Palazzo degli Studi di Bari (1875-1928), set up in the Salone degli Affreschi of the present Palazzo Ateneo (28 February-24 April 2020), originally the seat of the ancient Museo Provinciale. The initiative is focused on the formative moment of the Museo Provinciale, an Institution investigated‘inside’, ‘around’ and ‘out’. Become since 1928 of exclusively archaeological interest, the Museum, in fact, played a role of importance for the protection and valorization of artistic heritage of Southern of Italy, within the wide and often difficult national post-unitary framework. The Museo Provinciale of Bari has thus proved to be a point of reference both with regard to the rediscovery of the Medieval period and with regard to the collection and connoisseurship of the Modern Age. Always focusing on the artwork , the research has been supported by a systematic documentary survey that returns the Bari museum as a hub capable of attracting the attention of a large audience of scholars. Among these, there are personalities of Mitteleuropean education and culture such as Martin Wackernagel, student of Heinrich W lfflin and present in Puglia following Arthur Haseloff, an important historian of the Middle Age; connoisseurs of the complex ‘Venetian-Adriatic’ figurative issues (from Vivarinis to Tintoretto) such as Gustavo Frizzoni and Mario Salmi, up to include expert frequenters of the international art market as Bernard Berenson, ‘pellegrino di Puglia’ ante litteram, as well as his friend and US patron Edward Perry Worren