VERONA.- In the spring of 2014, Verona’s Palazzo della Ragione will be reopening its doors both for the Veronese and for an international public, not just because of its value as a historical building but also for its new role as the venue of the Achille Forti Gallery of Modern Art.

With its new entrance at the top of the monumental Scala della Ragione stairway in Corte del Mercato Vecchio, Palazzo della Ragione, together with the famous Torre dei Lamberti tower, will form a harmonious architectural grouping, each part of which can be visited.

This renovated, spectacular series of buildings is one of the city’s most recognizable landmarks. It is the result of many centuries of stratification from antiquity to today and will further enrich the international image of Verona as a centre of art and visual culture.

This reopening to both the local and the general public is the result of an important interaction between Verona city council, the Fondazione Cariverona and its sister foundation for culture and the arts, the Fondazione Domus.

This programmatic agreement has led to the reopening of the building together with the extraordinary collection that Achille Forti donated to the city: for the Veronese first of all, but also for the wider public visiting Verona for its music, opera, and theatre, thus contributing to keeping its cultural status alive and healthy.

The Gallery’s important works of art, together with those of the two Foundations, will be exhibited for the first time for the reopening, with a selection of works from the city’s collections from 1840 to 1940.

For this new start and for the creation of a special exhibition arrangement, a new artistic director has been engaged, Luca Massimo Barbero, who will fill the monumental rooms of the building with extraordinary paintings and surprising sculptures that recount the history of the Veronese collections and their relationship with the city.

Barbero says, “It will be interesting to discover the great and enigmatic Veronese Risorgimento through Francesco Hayez’ Meditazione or to rediscover such city emblems as Dante, a bronze by Ugo Zannoni, which directly refers to Verona’s history. Just as interesting will be to glimpse the birth of twentieth century art avant-gardes in Le Bagnanti by Giorgio Morandi, or note the arrival of Felice Casorati in Verona, an artist whose enthusiasm for the Venetian Secession movements rubbed off on the city. The public will be amazed by the surprising quality of artists working in Verona in the 1920s and 1930s, artists who learned from contemporary avant-garde experiences, or by the masterpiece by Arturo Martini which closes the show, Donna che nuota sott’acqua, and by the extraordinary Cavaliere by Marino Marini that looks forward to the second half of the twentieth century.”

So, with its reopening Palazzo della Ragione becomes, not just a palace of art and of Verona’s history, but also of collecting, collectors, and of the artists who have had a history, a story, and a relationship with the city.