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Bandiera Dipinta Il tricolore nella pittura italiana 1797 – 1947 Cloisters of San Domenico  Via Dante Alighieri n. 11 - Reggio Emilia 23 March – 8 June 2003 For further information: Musei Civici - Via Spallanzani 1 - 42100 Reggio Emilia  Tel. 0522 – 456477  fax 0522- 456476musei@municipio.re.it http://musei.comune.re.it 

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Painted flag. The national tricolour in Italian painting 1797 ? 1947: works

The national tricolour in Italian painting. On 7th January 1797, in Reggio Emilia, the representatives of the cities of Bologna, Modena, Ferrrara and Reggio chose the flag that was to symbolize the new-born Cispadana Republic. It was green, white and red, the stripes originally running horizontally.  In the cloisters of San Domenico in Reggio Emilia, eighty paintings document the representation and evolution of the tricolour over one hundred and fifty years of history.  The exhibition is arranged around five themes:

1. History amid stability and revolution: the meaning of the flag at different emblematic moments in history and politics as portrayed in the works of Carlo Bossoli, Domenico and Girolamo Induno, Felice Giani, Primo Conti and Ottone Rosai. From Jacobite unrest to the wars of independence, from the campaigns of Giuseppe Garibaldi's Red Shirts to the ceremonies marking the reunification of Italy, and finally the world wars and the Italian resistance. 

2. The face of Italy:  a panorama of portrait painting in which the tricolour symbolizes identity and belonging to the constitution of the nation, from the neoclassic and historical-romantic period (through the works of Giuseppe Bossi, Giuseppe De Albertis, Piccio, Antonio Muzzi, Antonio Ciseri and Appiani Junior) to the realist period in Tuscany, with Antonio Puccinelli and Giovanni Fattori; from the realist symbolism of Angelo Morbelli to the expressionism of Primo Conti, from the futurism of Pippo Rizzo to Renato Guttuso's realism.

3. Allegory: the flag as a symbol. The tricolour becomes, through metaphor, the symbol of Truth in the work of Pelagio Palagi, it bears witness to the suffering of the Italian people in the Christian Martyrs by Domenico Morelli, it symbolizes the strength of Italy in Antonio Muzzi and Vito Timmel, and the country's new springtime in the work of Tullio Garbari.

4. Pedagogic construction: the tricolour as part of the contemporary way of life, from domestic scenes by Odoardo Borrani and Gioacchino Toma to the city landscapes and monuments of Ippolito Caffi and Giacomo Favretto, to Francesco Paolo Michetti's "Mammina" (Mummy), whose white, red and green dress suggests an identification between nation and mother figure.

5. Image of a strong nation: the exaltation of the country and nation of early and later Futurism through the work of Giacomo Balla, Fortunato Depero, Giulio D'Anna and Mino Delle Site. During the exhibition, the historical Tricolour Room, recently renovated, will also be open to the public.