Licia Collobi was born in Trieste, still under Asburgic domination, on August 24th 1914, to Alberto Golubic (then italianized as Collobi) and Silvia De Domazetovich. She spent the first part of her infancy in Klagenfurt where her father, injured at an arm in Galizia in 1915, had been transferred as Commander of the Military Warehouse. Back in Trieste with her family after the war, being now bilingual Italian and German, Licia attended there Primary School, Secondary School and all the five years of Italian High School.
Given her mother's poor health, ill with tuberculosis and recurrently hospitalized at the Bressanone Sanatorium, Licia attended in Bressanone the second,third and fourth year of High School, giving her exam of admission to the fifth year in Trieste, where she graduated with excellent marks. Mother and daughter went back to Trieste in 1932 and by the end of the year Licia also graduated as a piano player at the Music Conservatory.
Initially inclined to get a degree in Germanism, she registered at the Faculty of Letters in Turin during fall of 1932. Here she followed her course in a brilliant but discontinuous way because she often had to go back to Trieste, given the health condition of her mother getting worse and worse (she would eventually pass away on February 1936) and is therefore in Torino that she obtains her University Degree in Art History in June 1936 achieving the highest grade: 110 on 110 cum laude, with a thesis on Carlo of Castellamonte, then published in 1937. On January of this year she also obtains the certification that allows her to teach Art History in High School, and she starts publishing essays, contribution works and reviews.
Following the suggestions of her thesis rapporteur Anna Maria Brizio ( the first woman to teach Art History in Italy), she continues studying with a three-year grant of advanced training at the Archaeology and Art History Institute in Rome, where she starts attending in January 1937. In February she meets Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti who, she herself will say, “was holding an advanced training private course I would describe as definitely antithetical to the official one, that I followed together with many others with great benefit”. In the spring of 1938 she's in Naples where she will participate with Ragghianti and others to the setting up of the Exhibition of Three Centuries of Naples Painting. On this occasion Ragghianti introduces her to Benedetto Croce.
Finished the advanced training course, since July 1938 she moves to Piacenza where she takes care of the overall Inventory of the artworks belonging to the Province with related bibliography. Stronger and stronger is the cultural, affective and the political partnership with Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti, as it's to be deducted from the intense correspondence between them from which results they will address each other in a colloquial form only since the second half of August 1938. Ragghianti is also in Modena, Emilia, for the filing of the artworks of the Estense Gallery – appointment only possible for him because not requiring to be enlisted in the fascist Party – and to secretly organize the network of Justice and Freedom that had his base in Bologna and included also Veneto and Marche regions.
The sharing of ideals, knowledge and life experiences between Licia and Carlo will lead to them getting married in Florence on November 30th, 1938.
The years 1938 and 1939 will be filled with intense activity and numerous trips within Italy and abroad for study and business, first alone to France and Paris in November 1938, and then to London with her husband until June 1939 (fully demonstrated in the quoted correspondence). In London, where was also the young Bruno Zevi, the studying activity for Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti was mostly a cover for important contacts with the English and American anti-fascism (possible through Dorothy Thompson, an American anti-Nazism journalist and radio-reporter).
In the summer of 1939 Licia is in Venice where she has contact with Piero Mentasti who was managing the Arcobaleno Gallery and wanted to entrust to Ragghianti a significant relaunch. The project didn't go through, since Italy was soon to enter into war on the 1st of September 1939. In December of this year they both return to Modena therefore to continue working, moving then to Bologna a few days before the birth of their son Francesco. Is also in December of the same year the contract – that did not continue - with the publisher Salani for the editing of the Manual of Art History for High Schools to be drafted with Ugo Procacci and Cesare Gnudi.
Tireless collaborator to the very intense work initiatives of her husband since the very beginning, husband with whom she has a complete union of ethical principles and life choices, Licia Collobi will not have any regard for her own health, situation that she will pay for later on both the years 1940-1945 and in the last part of her life.
Since 1941 she works with her husband to the renewal project of the magazine “Emporium” (Graphic Art Institute of Bergamo), job that was suspended after two issues due to the incarceration of Carlo L. Ragghianti, indicted for his anti-fascist political activity.
Living in Modena – as ordered by the Special Court – from October 1941 until the 24th of August 1943, mother of two (Francesco, born in Bologna on the 10th of January 1940 and Rosetta born in Modena on the 13th of April 1943), wife of an anti-fascist arrested twice (1942 in Modena then moved to the Murate prison in Florence, and from March to the 26th of July 1943 incarcerated at the San Giovanni in Monte prison in Bologna), Licia works first as a History Art teacher at the Minghetti High School in Bologna, and then at the Estense Gallery of Modena where she's hired to act as an Inspector of the Superintendence to the Galleries of Medieval and Modern Art of Modena and Reggio Emilia. She has as well to coordinate and continue the work and studying activities of her husband now in prison and – more than everything – keep contacts with the secret network, organizing the communication and action lines of the Giellist movement, orientated now toward the fight for freedom. In the same period of time she will also have to face three sudden moves: from Modena to Bologna and the from Bologna to Firenze.
Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti was released from prison on the 26th of July 1943, and the 3rd of Semptember the family lives in Florence in semi-clandestine. After the 8th of September 1943 it becomes clear the participation to the Action Party and to the armed fight ( because of which she will be later discharged as Major of the Italian Army), with further risks and sudden moves. Licia Collobi has been also a partisan courier, being able to move in an unknown city and region thanks to her terrific memory that allowed her to acquire quickly even very complicated information. Licia was the living archive of the military and civil clandestine entrusted with her husband, and she has been the depository also of the majority of the clandestine communication of the Action Party with Parri in Milano, with Veneto, Emilia Romagna and obviously Firenze and Tuscany.
After the self-liberation of Firenze (8/11/1944) and her consequent imperative and challenging activities also related to her husband's role as the President of the Tuscany Committee for the National Liberation, her physical resources were severely tested, reason why she will be forced to stay in Naples with her father, maritime engineer, from January to July 1945.
Every time her physical conditions failed her, Licia always reacted actively, knitting among other activities: she made in fact cardigans, pullovers, socks, dresses for husband and children and also a beautiful blanket during one of the longest hospitalization.
From June to December 1945 she's in Rome, since the husband is a member of the Parri Government, but she'll go back to Florence permanently at the end of December together with her two children, where she takes care as she later stated “...of filing of drawings for the Drawing and Prints Office of the Uffizi and for the Modern Art Gallery of Pitti Palace” (for which she made a re-set up project, unrealized). The third son, Giacomo, was born on the 5th June of 1946.
Between 1946 and 1955, alongside with the work activity and taking care of the family, is also constant and steady her collaboration with her husband. In 1946 she contributes to the direction of the collections “Art Journals” and “Art Critique Essays” published by U, Firenze: she has also been secretary – under the Superintendence – of the grand Exhibitions of Strozzi Palace and at the Strozzina Gallery, taking care of the catalogs ( 1947, Dutch and Flemish Art; 1948, Italian House through the centuries; 1949, Lorenzo the Magnificent and Arts). He also took care of the Catalog and the Exhibition about the “Italian Chair through centuries” for the Milan Triennial of 1951. The book has been re-published in 2005 because “ exemplary for the rigorous and clear exposition... (presenting) a material that has particular historical importance in the evolution of the culture of object and in the design of our country” (Vittorio Fagone). Also in 1951, she collaborated to the realization of the great Exhibition on the work of Wright, of whom was also interpreter.
In 1952 was released the magazine “SeleArte”, published by the Olivetti Society of Ivrea, two-monthly magazine of artistic international culture, selection and information created by Carlo L. Ragghianti, that represents a decisive change in the scope of artistic divulgation because of the higher accessibility to the reader, both on an economical standpoint but also thanks to a innovative and rigorous methodology. Licia Collobi participates to the magazine since the very start taking step by step part of the responsibility to choose the materials, to write the essays, to edit the columns ( thanks also to her multilingual knowledge: German, obviously, but also English, french, Spanish and Slavic languages: she was able to understand and translate almost every European language), becoming the only editor starting from July 1956, co-director in May 1964. After the ceasing of the magazine in June 1966 (the maximum printing was 54.544 copies in June 1958) she edits the section bearing the same title in the magazine “Critica d'Arte” ("Art Critique") starting with the issue no. 78/April 1966 until 1989, in the last series of the magazine, published by Panini. Since 1954 she's also editor of “Critica d'Arte” becoming deputy director in 1964.
Since 1955 the family settles in what will be their final place of residency, at the slopes of Mount Morello. In 1956, expecting her fourth child (Anna, born the 17th of July) she retires prematurely thanks to legal concessions, hence intensifying her studies and the collaboration to “SeleArte” and “Critica d'Arte”.
After the premature birth of Anna, at the age of 42, although physically exhausted she would stay at the hospital every day, traveling to
Given her mother's poor health, ill with tuberculosis and recurrently hospitalized at the Bressanone Sanatorium, Licia attended in Bressanone the second,third and fourth year of High School, giving her exam of admission to the fifth year in Trieste, where she graduated with excellent marks. Mother and daughter went back to Trieste in 1932 and by the end of the year Licia also graduated as a piano player at the Music Conservatory.
Initially inclined to get a degree in Germanism, she registered at the Faculty of Letters in Turin during fall of 1932. Here she followed her course in a brilliant but discontinuous way because she often had to go back to Trieste, given the health condition of her mother getting worse and worse (she would eventually pass away on February 1936) and is therefore in Torino that she obtains her University Degree in Art History in June 1936 achieving the highest grade: 110 on 110 cum laude, with a thesis on Carlo of Castellamonte, then published in 1937. On January of this year she also obtains the certification that allows her to teach Art History in High School, and she starts publishing essays, contribution works and reviews.
Following the suggestions of her thesis rapporteur Anna Maria Brizio ( the first woman to teach Art History in Italy), she continues studying with a three-year grant of advanced training at the Archaeology and Art History Institute in Rome, where she starts attending in January 1937. In February she meets Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti who, she herself will say, “was holding an advanced training private course I would describe as definitely antithetical to the official one, that I followed together with many others with great benefit”. In the spring of 1938 she's in Naples where she will participate with Ragghianti and others to the setting up of the Exhibition of Three Centuries of Naples Painting. On this occasion Ragghianti introduces her to Benedetto Croce.
Finished the advanced training course, since July 1938 she moves to Piacenza where she takes care of the overall Inventory of the artworks belonging to the Province with related bibliography. Stronger and stronger is the cultural, affective and the political partnership with Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti, as it's to be deducted from the intense correspondence between them from which results they will address each other in a colloquial form only since the second half of August 1938. Ragghianti is also in Modena, Emilia, for the filing of the artworks of the Estense Gallery – appointment only possible for him because not requiring to be enlisted in the fascist Party – and to secretly organize the network of Justice and Freedom that had his base in Bologna and included also Veneto and Marche regions.
The sharing of ideals, knowledge and life experiences between Licia and Carlo will lead to them getting married in Florence on November 30th, 1938.
The years 1938 and 1939 will be filled with intense activity and numerous trips within Italy and abroad for study and business, first alone to France and Paris in November 1938, and then to London with her husband until June 1939 (fully demonstrated in the quoted correspondence). In London, where was also the young Bruno Zevi, the studying activity for Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti was mostly a cover for important contacts with the English and American anti-fascism (possible through Dorothy Thompson, an American anti-Nazism journalist and radio-reporter).
In the summer of 1939 Licia is in Venice where she has contact with Piero Mentasti who was managing the Arcobaleno Gallery and wanted to entrust to Ragghianti a significant relaunch. The project didn't go through, since Italy was soon to enter into war on the 1st of September 1939. In December of this year they both return to Modena therefore to continue working, moving then to Bologna a few days before the birth of their son Francesco. Is also in December of the same year the contract – that did not continue - with the publisher Salani for the editing of the Manual of Art History for High Schools to be drafted with Ugo Procacci and Cesare Gnudi.
Tireless collaborator to the very intense work initiatives of her husband since the very beginning, husband with whom she has a complete union of ethical principles and life choices, Licia Collobi will not have any regard for her own health, situation that she will pay for later on both the years 1940-1945 and in the last part of her life.
Since 1941 she works with her husband to the renewal project of the magazine “Emporium” (Graphic Art Institute of Bergamo), job that was suspended after two issues due to the incarceration of Carlo L. Ragghianti, indicted for his anti-fascist political activity.
 |
| Foto di Francesco Ragghianti |
Living in Modena – as ordered by the Special Court – from October 1941 until the 24th of August 1943, mother of two (Francesco, born in Bologna on the 10th of January 1940 and Rosetta born in Modena on the 13th of April 1943), wife of an anti-fascist arrested twice (1942 in Modena then moved to the Murate prison in Florence, and from March to the 26th of July 1943 incarcerated at the San Giovanni in Monte prison in Bologna), Licia works first as a History Art teacher at the Minghetti High School in Bologna, and then at the Estense Gallery of Modena where she's hired to act as an Inspector of the Superintendence to the Galleries of Medieval and Modern Art of Modena and Reggio Emilia. She has as well to coordinate and continue the work and studying activities of her husband now in prison and – more than everything – keep contacts with the secret network, organizing the communication and action lines of the Giellist movement, orientated now toward the fight for freedom. In the same period of time she will also have to face three sudden moves: from Modena to Bologna and the from Bologna to Firenze.
Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti was released from prison on the 26th of July 1943, and the 3rd of Semptember the family lives in Florence in semi-clandestine. After the 8th of September 1943 it becomes clear the participation to the Action Party and to the armed fight ( because of which she will be later discharged as Major of the Italian Army), with further risks and sudden moves. Licia Collobi has been also a partisan courier, being able to move in an unknown city and region thanks to her terrific memory that allowed her to acquire quickly even very complicated information. Licia was the living archive of the military and civil clandestine entrusted with her husband, and she has been the depository also of the majority of the clandestine communication of the Action Party with Parri in Milano, with Veneto, Emilia Romagna and obviously Firenze and Tuscany.
After the self-liberation of Firenze (8/11/1944) and her consequent imperative and challenging activities also related to her husband's role as the President of the Tuscany Committee for the National Liberation, her physical resources were severely tested, reason why she will be forced to stay in Naples with her father, maritime engineer, from January to July 1945.
Every time her physical conditions failed her, Licia always reacted actively, knitting among other activities: she made in fact cardigans, pullovers, socks, dresses for husband and children and also a beautiful blanket during one of the longest hospitalization.
From June to December 1945 she's in Rome, since the husband is a member of the Parri Government, but she'll go back to Florence permanently at the end of December together with her two children, where she takes care as she later stated “...of filing of drawings for the Drawing and Prints Office of the Uffizi and for the Modern Art Gallery of Pitti Palace” (for which she made a re-set up project, unrealized). The third son, Giacomo, was born on the 5th June of 1946.
Between 1946 and 1955, alongside with the work activity and taking care of the family, is also constant and steady her collaboration with her husband. In 1946 she contributes to the direction of the collections “Art Journals” and “Art Critique Essays” published by U, Firenze: she has also been secretary – under the Superintendence – of the grand Exhibitions of Strozzi Palace and at the Strozzina Gallery, taking care of the catalogs ( 1947, Dutch and Flemish Art; 1948, Italian House through the centuries; 1949, Lorenzo the Magnificent and Arts). He also took care of the Catalog and the Exhibition about the “Italian Chair through centuries” for the Milan Triennial of 1951. The book has been re-published in 2005 because “ exemplary for the rigorous and clear exposition... (presenting) a material that has particular historical importance in the evolution of the culture of object and in the design of our country” (Vittorio Fagone). Also in 1951, she collaborated to the realization of the great Exhibition on the work of Wright, of whom was also interpreter.
In 1952 was released the magazine “SeleArte”, published by the Olivetti Society of Ivrea, two-monthly magazine of artistic international culture, selection and information created by Carlo L. Ragghianti, that represents a decisive change in the scope of artistic divulgation because of the higher accessibility to the reader, both on an economical standpoint but also thanks to a innovative and rigorous methodology. Licia Collobi participates to the magazine since the very start taking step by step part of the responsibility to choose the materials, to write the essays, to edit the columns ( thanks also to her multilingual knowledge: German, obviously, but also English, french, Spanish and Slavic languages: she was able to understand and translate almost every European language), becoming the only editor starting from July 1956, co-director in May 1964. After the ceasing of the magazine in June 1966 (the maximum printing was 54.544 copies in June 1958) she edits the section bearing the same title in the magazine “Critica d'Arte” ("Art Critique") starting with the issue no. 78/April 1966 until 1989, in the last series of the magazine, published by Panini. Since 1954 she's also editor of “Critica d'Arte” becoming deputy director in 1964.
Since 1955 the family settles in what will be their final place of residency, at the slopes of Mount Morello. In 1956, expecting her fourth child (Anna, born the 17th of July) she retires prematurely thanks to legal concessions, hence intensifying her studies and the collaboration to “SeleArte” and “Critica d'Arte”.
After the premature birth of Anna, at the age of 42, although physically exhausted she would stay at the hospital every day, traveling to
Firenze from Consuma – where she had left the other children for vacation – until the baby was out of the incubator.
Thanks to her perfect knowledge of the German language, in 1959 she writes for the Einaudi “Essays” her translation of the “Late Roman Art” of Alois Riegl, prefaced by an important critic report in which the work of the great scholar was presented in a fashion suited to introducing it more largely and appropriately into the culture. This book in fact “constitutes one of the fundamental experiences of the modern art critique and remains vital sixty years after its first appearance”.
In the first months of 1960 her health, her work duties and her responsibility towards her children force Licia into thinking of “leaving” the magazine “SeleArte”, decision she then took back although the increasing engagement required by the magazine, because of the more and more engaging and numerous initiatives took by her husband (ADESSPI, Artemobile, Drawing and Prints Office of the Art History Institute of Pisa, ecc. ).
Neri Pozza published in 1961 “Forges and Forgers” by Otto Kurz, a book that is a “ reviews of the objectives, the methods and the techniques of ancient and modern forgers and a vast if not complete repertoire of the forges of all times and places....”. Licia Collobi translates and edits it, adding – as she confirms in her Memories for her children, 1989- “to its weak illustrative part a bunch of beautiful forges, that Zeri doesn't know, so he says, and yet no one ever spoke about that book...it was a very interesting work though and, as usual of Kurz, amusing”. Anyhow, the new management of the same Publishing Company re-printed the book in its origianl form in 1996.
Is in 1962 that is published the book “Flemish Painters”, edited by G. Argentieri. In reality, as one can determine by the contract of February 28th 1962, the book was written by Licia who, in the 5th point of the contract itself “accepts the book to be published only mentioning the editing by Giuseppe Argentieri”. The job was provided by Alfredo Righi, and was used to pay the transformation of the heating system in the house, from charcoal to naphta (crude fuel oil). The essay examines the whole Flemish Painting from 1400 to 1600, with a clear and precise vision of that period of history, so rich in sublime figurative facts.
Between 1963 and 1967 three books come out and many contributes to “SeleArte” and “Critica d'Arte” concerning her studies on the drawings from the Horn Foundation of Florence, from the general catalog to the study of individual artists in the collection. They are: “Drawings of the Horne Foundation” choice and summary catalog, Florence, La Strozzina 1963; “English Drawings of the Horne Foundation and Florence”, critic catalog, Milan, Community Edition 1966, also with English translation; “Francesco Guardi's Drawings in the Horne Foundation and Florence”, "guardeschi" problems, in the Study Conference Reports of 13th -14th September 1965, Venice, Alfieri 1967. Drawings are in fact a recurrent and one of the main topics of her studies.
Since 1967 her health will affect more and more her activities, being forced to short but frequent stays to feel better, at the seaside, mostly in her loved Viareggio, or on the mountains at Moena. This neither prevent her from bringing with her some work to do (translations, drafts editing and whatever else was necessary), nor it allowed her to let go of the managing and organizing of the house, with the help of the older sons, especially since they lost the fundamental help of Maria Landi, housekeeper for them since 1954, because of her getting married.
In 1968 are published her contributes to the books published by Mondadori in the series “World's Museums”, translated into many languages and spread in many countries (“Alte Pinakothek, Monaco”; “National Gallery, Washington”; “Prado, Madrid”). For the same series she writes majority of the texts of “National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City” in 1970. This last volume talks about the topic – dear to her heart and considered many times in “SeleArte” and also later – of the Pre-Colombian Art , of which she establishes herself among the most competent regarding the artistic evaluation of the artworks.
In the spring of 1970 a minor surgery for gallbladder stones drammatically changes because of multiple cardiac arrests, forcing the surgeon to perform a manual open-heart massage that lasted hours, until the arrival of a special machines that could only be found in Bologna, of the whole country. Her indomitable spirit allows Licia to overcome also this terrible circumstance. After many months of being bedridden, she return to her usual life of writing books, collaborating with her husband ( for whom she translates in 1971 the book by Wolfang Braunfels “ Mittelalteriche Stadtbaukunst in der Toskana “, Berlin, Verlag Gebr. Mann 1959 – Medieval Urban Architecture in Tuscany) and the taking care of the family and the house, with her usual commitment. In this period she intensifies the studies to piece together the lost opus of the Vasari's “Drawings Book”.
From 1970 until 1986 is very important in the life of the Ragghianti couple the summer stay at La Guglielmesca, hotel above Cortona, where both can rest and work under the tender care of the owners Nice and Mario Boari. In the last years the stay was prolonged with the hospitalization at the Cortona Hospital, where under the responsibility of the director of the Hospital prof. Marco Ricca they both were, in different times, treated to better cope with the pitfalls of winter.
In 1974 was published by Vallecchi “The Book of Drawings of Vasari” in two volumes, that the author says “is the first critic representation, completely illustrated, of the graphic collection to which Giorgio Vasari dedicated himself during his whole existence, with commitment parallel to the one required by his job...for the colossal work of the Lives”.
There are two other collaborations in 1979 to the Mondadori series “World's Museums”: “Metropolitan Museum, New York”; “Archealogical National Museum of Athens”. Since 1980 she publishes for the series of Documents by De Agostini of Novara: “Pre-Incas Civilizations” (1980); “Splendors of Pre-Colombian Civilizations” (1981); “Reneissance Spaces” (1984, re-published in 1986). The last three volumes were popular and synthetic work, still exaustive and critically rigorous.
In 1985 she publishes the bulky volume “The European 1400”, fourth volume of the “History of Painting” directed by her husband for the Geographic Institute De Agostini, book that consitutes coherent and exhaustive of the researches, the detailed analysis and the studies made to adequately review books and exhibitions in more than thirty years of writing for the “SeleArte” series.
Despite her poor health, made worse by an inherited, progressive and unstoppable diminishing of her breathing capacity, Licia keeps working, organizing and participating – when and how she is able to – in the initiatives and manifestations promoted by her husband: the founding of the International University of Art in Florence (1969) and in Venice (for about a decade), the creation of the Center for the Studies of Art Licia and Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti in Lucca (1982), the re-start and relaunch of “Art Critique” published by Panini, Modena (1984) etc.
For the whole duration of her marriage her table was always cheerful gathering point of Italian and International personalities. Artists, politicians, intellectuals, architects and literate men, but also her husband's students and her childrens' friends came and go as her guests, for lunch or dinner and often for both. She would accept it also because of sharing the idea of duty and conduct of a University Professor, that Ragghianti took from the germanic tradition.
Only a few days before her husband's death, the second-to-last book of Licia is published: “Giotto”, that seems completed on the spot but it's instead meditated study. It is, yes, a popular study – and is not to be forgotten that she was master and pioneer using this expositive capacity – but, as she herself says “this short but rigorous essay wants to be a personal re-thought to be understood as a homage to the extraordinary experience of fervor and life that this great son of the land of Mugello gave us”.
Although forced by the rythms imposed with the condition of being constantly bed-ridden, she still spends her energies to the full, later having to take breaks to recover. Her physical decline gets inevitably worse since 1987 (thigh-bone break, cataracts, the death of her husband on the 3rd of August, additional reducing of her breathing capacity), but her strong personality would make her continue working and being engaged with the usual discipline and continuity until the completing of her last book. It was the volume “Flamish Paintings in Italy 1420-1570. Catalog”, Bologna, Calderini, distributed post-mortem. It is therefore completed this way, with relevant effort, the ideal path started in 1947 with the Exhibition at Palazzo Strozzi dedicated to the Flamish Painters. As Ranieri Varese writes “ the extent of information makes sure that this Corpus consitutes a surprise even for those, among the scholars, who are particularly experienced in Flamish Painting... Skimming the thick pages of this Corpus is a continuous solicitation and invite: it's not hazardous to say it is one of the most important volumes appeared in these years”.
Licia's son Francesco, worried together with his sisters, for the incipient depression following the death of her companion after 49 years intensely lived together in “an aware construction, since the moment we found ourselves having to admit we wanted to be together”, also being that the Flamish Corpus had been concluded, he convinced with “tender persistence” his mother to re-evocate, point out, tell the family history. Two texts followed: one published after her death (Sept. 1994) as a monography in the semi-clandestine “SeleArte”, family fanzine privately printed in a few dozens copies (1987-1999), entitled “Notes for a Family Lexicon”. Finished the “Lexicon” the 23rd of April 1989 ( that constitutes sort of a preface to the story of the events during the union of Licia with Carlo L. Ragghianti), she begins the other text during the stay at the Quisisana clinic of Montecatini Alto on the 6th of August 1988 and she finishes it the 7th of April 1989 in her bed in Florence; Licia decided to entitle it “A mum tells. To my children, written for them”. The 190 pages of the text that her daughter Anna copied from the 4 big notebooks basically written without a second thought or a correction, still remain unpublished, as it is also unpublished the “Correspondence 1937-1987” between the Ragghianti couple together with axaustive notes and index– also copied by her – because of a disagreement about their publishing. Licia Collobi Ragghianti passes away in the bed of her house the 26th of July 1989.
by Rosetta Ragghianti
Translation of Irene Marziali Francis
Thanks to her perfect knowledge of the German language, in 1959 she writes for the Einaudi “Essays” her translation of the “Late Roman Art” of Alois Riegl, prefaced by an important critic report in which the work of the great scholar was presented in a fashion suited to introducing it more largely and appropriately into the culture. This book in fact “constitutes one of the fundamental experiences of the modern art critique and remains vital sixty years after its first appearance”.
In the first months of 1960 her health, her work duties and her responsibility towards her children force Licia into thinking of “leaving” the magazine “SeleArte”, decision she then took back although the increasing engagement required by the magazine, because of the more and more engaging and numerous initiatives took by her husband (ADESSPI, Artemobile, Drawing and Prints Office of the Art History Institute of Pisa, ecc. ).
Neri Pozza published in 1961 “Forges and Forgers” by Otto Kurz, a book that is a “ reviews of the objectives, the methods and the techniques of ancient and modern forgers and a vast if not complete repertoire of the forges of all times and places....”. Licia Collobi translates and edits it, adding – as she confirms in her Memories for her children, 1989- “to its weak illustrative part a bunch of beautiful forges, that Zeri doesn't know, so he says, and yet no one ever spoke about that book...it was a very interesting work though and, as usual of Kurz, amusing”. Anyhow, the new management of the same Publishing Company re-printed the book in its origianl form in 1996.
Is in 1962 that is published the book “Flemish Painters”, edited by G. Argentieri. In reality, as one can determine by the contract of February 28th 1962, the book was written by Licia who, in the 5th point of the contract itself “accepts the book to be published only mentioning the editing by Giuseppe Argentieri”. The job was provided by Alfredo Righi, and was used to pay the transformation of the heating system in the house, from charcoal to naphta (crude fuel oil). The essay examines the whole Flemish Painting from 1400 to 1600, with a clear and precise vision of that period of history, so rich in sublime figurative facts.
Between 1963 and 1967 three books come out and many contributes to “SeleArte” and “Critica d'Arte” concerning her studies on the drawings from the Horn Foundation of Florence, from the general catalog to the study of individual artists in the collection. They are: “Drawings of the Horne Foundation” choice and summary catalog, Florence, La Strozzina 1963; “English Drawings of the Horne Foundation and Florence”, critic catalog, Milan, Community Edition 1966, also with English translation; “Francesco Guardi's Drawings in the Horne Foundation and Florence”, "guardeschi" problems, in the Study Conference Reports of 13th -14th September 1965, Venice, Alfieri 1967. Drawings are in fact a recurrent and one of the main topics of her studies.
Since 1967 her health will affect more and more her activities, being forced to short but frequent stays to feel better, at the seaside, mostly in her loved Viareggio, or on the mountains at Moena. This neither prevent her from bringing with her some work to do (translations, drafts editing and whatever else was necessary), nor it allowed her to let go of the managing and organizing of the house, with the help of the older sons, especially since they lost the fundamental help of Maria Landi, housekeeper for them since 1954, because of her getting married.
 |
| Foto di Edoardo Detti |
In 1968 are published her contributes to the books published by Mondadori in the series “World's Museums”, translated into many languages and spread in many countries (“Alte Pinakothek, Monaco”; “National Gallery, Washington”; “Prado, Madrid”). For the same series she writes majority of the texts of “National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City” in 1970. This last volume talks about the topic – dear to her heart and considered many times in “SeleArte” and also later – of the Pre-Colombian Art , of which she establishes herself among the most competent regarding the artistic evaluation of the artworks.
In the spring of 1970 a minor surgery for gallbladder stones drammatically changes because of multiple cardiac arrests, forcing the surgeon to perform a manual open-heart massage that lasted hours, until the arrival of a special machines that could only be found in Bologna, of the whole country. Her indomitable spirit allows Licia to overcome also this terrible circumstance. After many months of being bedridden, she return to her usual life of writing books, collaborating with her husband ( for whom she translates in 1971 the book by Wolfang Braunfels “ Mittelalteriche Stadtbaukunst in der Toskana “, Berlin, Verlag Gebr. Mann 1959 – Medieval Urban Architecture in Tuscany) and the taking care of the family and the house, with her usual commitment. In this period she intensifies the studies to piece together the lost opus of the Vasari's “Drawings Book”.
From 1970 until 1986 is very important in the life of the Ragghianti couple the summer stay at La Guglielmesca, hotel above Cortona, where both can rest and work under the tender care of the owners Nice and Mario Boari. In the last years the stay was prolonged with the hospitalization at the Cortona Hospital, where under the responsibility of the director of the Hospital prof. Marco Ricca they both were, in different times, treated to better cope with the pitfalls of winter.
In 1974 was published by Vallecchi “The Book of Drawings of Vasari” in two volumes, that the author says “is the first critic representation, completely illustrated, of the graphic collection to which Giorgio Vasari dedicated himself during his whole existence, with commitment parallel to the one required by his job...for the colossal work of the Lives”.
There are two other collaborations in 1979 to the Mondadori series “World's Museums”: “Metropolitan Museum, New York”; “Archealogical National Museum of Athens”. Since 1980 she publishes for the series of Documents by De Agostini of Novara: “Pre-Incas Civilizations” (1980); “Splendors of Pre-Colombian Civilizations” (1981); “Reneissance Spaces” (1984, re-published in 1986). The last three volumes were popular and synthetic work, still exaustive and critically rigorous.
In 1985 she publishes the bulky volume “The European 1400”, fourth volume of the “History of Painting” directed by her husband for the Geographic Institute De Agostini, book that consitutes coherent and exhaustive of the researches, the detailed analysis and the studies made to adequately review books and exhibitions in more than thirty years of writing for the “SeleArte” series.
Despite her poor health, made worse by an inherited, progressive and unstoppable diminishing of her breathing capacity, Licia keeps working, organizing and participating – when and how she is able to – in the initiatives and manifestations promoted by her husband: the founding of the International University of Art in Florence (1969) and in Venice (for about a decade), the creation of the Center for the Studies of Art Licia and Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti in Lucca (1982), the re-start and relaunch of “Art Critique” published by Panini, Modena (1984) etc.
For the whole duration of her marriage her table was always cheerful gathering point of Italian and International personalities. Artists, politicians, intellectuals, architects and literate men, but also her husband's students and her childrens' friends came and go as her guests, for lunch or dinner and often for both. She would accept it also because of sharing the idea of duty and conduct of a University Professor, that Ragghianti took from the germanic tradition.
Only a few days before her husband's death, the second-to-last book of Licia is published: “Giotto”, that seems completed on the spot but it's instead meditated study. It is, yes, a popular study – and is not to be forgotten that she was master and pioneer using this expositive capacity – but, as she herself says “this short but rigorous essay wants to be a personal re-thought to be understood as a homage to the extraordinary experience of fervor and life that this great son of the land of Mugello gave us”.
Although forced by the rythms imposed with the condition of being constantly bed-ridden, she still spends her energies to the full, later having to take breaks to recover. Her physical decline gets inevitably worse since 1987 (thigh-bone break, cataracts, the death of her husband on the 3rd of August, additional reducing of her breathing capacity), but her strong personality would make her continue working and being engaged with the usual discipline and continuity until the completing of her last book. It was the volume “Flamish Paintings in Italy 1420-1570. Catalog”, Bologna, Calderini, distributed post-mortem. It is therefore completed this way, with relevant effort, the ideal path started in 1947 with the Exhibition at Palazzo Strozzi dedicated to the Flamish Painters. As Ranieri Varese writes “ the extent of information makes sure that this Corpus consitutes a surprise even for those, among the scholars, who are particularly experienced in Flamish Painting... Skimming the thick pages of this Corpus is a continuous solicitation and invite: it's not hazardous to say it is one of the most important volumes appeared in these years”.
Licia's son Francesco, worried together with his sisters, for the incipient depression following the death of her companion after 49 years intensely lived together in “an aware construction, since the moment we found ourselves having to admit we wanted to be together”, also being that the Flamish Corpus had been concluded, he convinced with “tender persistence” his mother to re-evocate, point out, tell the family history. Two texts followed: one published after her death (Sept. 1994) as a monography in the semi-clandestine “SeleArte”, family fanzine privately printed in a few dozens copies (1987-1999), entitled “Notes for a Family Lexicon”. Finished the “Lexicon” the 23rd of April 1989 ( that constitutes sort of a preface to the story of the events during the union of Licia with Carlo L. Ragghianti), she begins the other text during the stay at the Quisisana clinic of Montecatini Alto on the 6th of August 1988 and she finishes it the 7th of April 1989 in her bed in Florence; Licia decided to entitle it “A mum tells. To my children, written for them”. The 190 pages of the text that her daughter Anna copied from the 4 big notebooks basically written without a second thought or a correction, still remain unpublished, as it is also unpublished the “Correspondence 1937-1987” between the Ragghianti couple together with axaustive notes and index– also copied by her – because of a disagreement about their publishing. Licia Collobi Ragghianti passes away in the bed of her house the 26th of July 1989.
by Rosetta Ragghianti
Translation of Irene Marziali Francis
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