An exhibition that for the first time opens a dialogue between the collections of the Cassa di Risparmio di Perugia Foundation exhibited at Palazzo Baldeschi: Amori Antichi. Ceramics, drawings and engravings in the Collections of the Cassa di Risparmio di Perugia Foundation , an invitation to discover reflections and similarities between the ceramics of Giuseppe Magni and some drawings and engravings from the collection that belonged to Alessandro Marabottini.

For many years, Professor of Art History at the University of Perugia, Alessandro Marabottini decided to leave his rich art collection composed of over seven hundred works dating back mainly to the sixteenth and twentieth centuries, so that they could establish direct contact with the works and materials of which they are composed, handling and analyzing closely, in a special Study Room and with the assistance of teachers and specialized staff, the various pieces of the collection.

Sixteen majolicas created between 1883 and 1894 by the Eugubian painter Giuseppe Magni, a representative figure of nineteenth-century historicist eclecticism, became part of the patrimony of the Cassa di Risparmio di Perugia Foundation in 2016. The first, “Amor Sacro”, includes the corridor and the first room and houses majolicas of a religious nature flanked by nineteenth-century drawings on the same theme. The second, “Profane love”, is dedicated to myth and allegories. The graphic works on display are, in this case, partly from the sixteenth century, a period that inspired not only Magni but also purist artists.

Finally, “ …. Of Ancient love felt the great power ” brings together Dante-themed works and portraits of illustrious men and women, recognized examples of high moral value from historical Romanticism. In a refined game of references, the “love of the past” takes shape in the Neo-Renaissance taste of the ceramist, in the classical themes - between Love and Eros - of the sacred, of myth and of history, in the passion of the collector.