Fondazione Boschi Di Stefano * The foundation

President
Avv. Ezio Antonini

Board Members
Dott. Davide Dall’Ombra
Dott.ssa Elisa Mendini
Dott.ssa Daniela Barbara Morlacchi
Dott. Claudio Salsi

Auditors
Avv. Maria Ursula Benetti Genolini
Dott. Daniele Angelo Contessi
Dott. Antonio Ricco

Scientific Board
Avv. Ezio Antonini
Dott.ssa Maria Teresa Fiorio
Prof. Antonello Negri
Dott.ssa Francesca Paola Rusconi
Marécaux

Art consultant
and organisation
Dott.ssa Francesca Paola Rusconi
Marécaux

The Foundation

The Boschi Di Stefano Foundation was formed in 1998 on settlement of the dispute between the heirs of Antonio and Marieda Boschi and the City of Milan to ensure fulfilment of the wishes of Antonio Boschi in his last will and testament to have a selection of the works the couple had collected displayed in the home where he had lived with his wife. In co-operation with Philippe Daverio, then City Councillor for Arts and Culture, it was agreed to establish a Foundation administered on an equal basis by representatives of the City and representatives of the family – assisted by the then Director of the Civiche Raccolte d’Arte, Maria Teresa Fiorio, curator of the collection’s current selection and display arrangement.
The Foundation arranged for the installation of security systems, for the premises to be restored, under the direction of architect Cristiana Vannini; and for furnishings to be purchased (with the expert advice of Marco Arosio), in harmony with the style of the building and with the different artistic periods of the collection.
The Foundation’s objectives include: promoting cultural initiatives for the study and propagation of art collection, the recovery of historical archives, organising and publicising events, the provision of an advisory service to university students and researchers.

Photo: Václav Šedý

Musical evenings

Antonio and Marieda Boschi’s domestic “musical evenings” left an indelible memory. This inspired the Boschi Di Stefano Foundation to recreate that atmosphere by arranging concerts. They were designed on the one hand to enliven the house, as if still inhabited by the two collectors and on the other, to suggest deeper relations and affinities between the music and figurative arts of the period when the collection took was created, through the performance of Twentieth Century chamber music of various origins and genres. The five concerts, an account of which features in the Foundation’s Companion Guide L’aria della sera, were organised by the late Professor Francesco Degrada in 2003. The “lucid Bechstein” piano – which, for Antonio and Marieda Boschi, was not merely a bourgeois ornament but an important element of their domestic life – has resumed its original role!

Photo: Mario Tedeschi

The Camesasca Library

The collection of over seven thousand books belonging to the art historian Ettore Camesasca (1922-1995), which his heirs have entrusted to the care of the Boschi Di Stefano Foundation, will be available for consultation (by appointment) at the Foundation’s headquarters, once cataloguing works have been completed. A many-faceted personality, Camesasca is known for his curatorship of the Rizzoli Art Classics, for organising national and international exhibitions, for working with P.M. Bardi on the São Paulo Art Museum in Brazil; for his valued studies – monographs and new editions of classics alike – of artists, especially of the Renaissance.
A library of monographs and literature on Twentieth Century art history and collectiong is also being created.

Photo: Václav Šedý

Archives

The Boschi Di Stefano Foundation has acquired the archives of the journalist and art critic, Liliana Bortolon, and of Dottoressa Mercedes Precerruti Garberi who was the director of the Civic Art Collections of Milan. These archives contain very interesting documents on the history of 20th Century art and the Bortolon archive in particular contains previously unpublished material on Massimo Campigli. The Foundation also holds an archive of the painter, Giannino Grossi, in storage.

Photo: Václav Šedý

Publications

The “Companion Guides” of the Boschi Di Stefano Foundation, published at random intervals, were devised to keep a written record of particular aspects of the Boschi Di Stefano Collection, regarding both the works and the lives of the collectors and their families as well as the cultural scene in Milan in which the collection of the works matured and grew in the middle of the last century. Small mini-guides have been published on the contents of the Museum-Home, the first entitled The Works and the second The Furnishings, the former written by Maria Teresa Fiorio and the latter by Ornella Selvafolta. They provide a room by room description of the Museum. The “Companion Guide” entitled L’aria della sera edited by Francesco Degrada was published in memory of a series of concerts held in the Museum-Home in 2003. Three “Family Albums” have also been published. The first, dedicated to Marieda Di Stefano’s family and adolescence, contains an introduction by Alessandro Mendini, who was her nephew, while the second, on the family life of the married couple, focuses on their leisure time and the places they visited on vacations together. It contains a commentary by Ezio Antonini. The third and final album, dedicated to the travels of the collector couple, contains an introduction by Giacomo Corna Pellegrini.

The books are not for sale, but are intended to add to our knowledge of the Musemum-Home.

L’aria della sera

Quaderno 1
Le opere

Quaderno 2
Gli arredi

Album di famiglia n.1

Album di famiglia n.2

Album di famiglia n.3