All cards revealed

Some of the materials on show are from the archives of Ferruccio Ferrazzi, Cipriano Efisio Oppo and Francesco Trombadori (today at the Associazione Amici di Villa Strohl-fern), a fact that exemplifies the collaboration that has existed from the beginning between the Archive and the artists and other individuals from the era in question, and from their heirs. The items on display include important works lent from private collections: a number of paintings, drawings and a sculpture are direct examples – with documents and photographs – of the cultural background represented by the Archive.
The exhibition was planned as an imaginary journey into artistic and cultural Rome that existed between the wars, for which, as in every trip, some sort of guide is necessary. In this case it is a topographical map of the city in the 1920s and ’30s that indicates the locations of the studios, galleries, theatres, power centres and exhibition halls, plus such places as the Caffé Aragno, the barges on the River Tiber, and the taverns where the artists, literati and figures from the world of Roman culture swapped ideas and experiences.
The exhibition might also be considered a starting point for a journey to explore the many traces of the Roman School that remain in the city today, for example, the works of art in the Galleria Nazionale and Galleria Comunale d’Arte Moderna, Villa Strohl-fern and the studio of Francesco Trombadori, the former Palazzo delle Corporazioni in Via Veneto (today Palazzo dell’Industria), as well as EUR and the Foro Italico, two monumental sites where artworks of the period can be seen.
The exhibition is dedicated to Maurizio Fagiolo dell’Arco and Antonello Trombadori whose energy and enthusiasm were distinctive traits of much of the history of the period.