Data Bank
A complex and detailed activity of cataloguing and data entry has so far made it possible to "radiograph" up to 150,000 works related to a list of 9,000 artists. The classification has taken into account, besides the examination of the originals, also the analysis of catalogues, inventories and photographic archives. As about the documents following 1880, the year when the first modern art auctions took place, also the marketing activity has been taken into consideration. The information, organized according to today's cataloguing criteria, has been recorded on the basis of the author, title, chronology, iconography, technique, story of the work, exhibitions and bibliographical references. Each card is put in archive with its own index number in order to go back, at any time, to the original document and to the registration date.
In case of request it can be provided with an expert's advice to certificate the work authenticity.
Library
A fundamental resource of study and research, made of over 15,000 volumes, for its value, quantity and the collected documentation, the Library represents one of the richest and most updated private nucleuses on the modern Italian and French art. The gathered titles, ever increasing, are a valid support for the drawing up of degrees, essays and publications. Developed in an artistic-literary sphere, the Library is specialized in Tuscan Macchiaioli-style painting.
Critical essays, monographs, periodicals, journals, catalogues of official and marketing exhibitions: these and not only these are the texts which form the extensive catalogue. Merit of the library is the conservation of some particularly rare volumes, fundamental for the knowledge of the exhibit activity of the time. Very important is also the collection of the original catalogues of the exhibitions of Brera and of the Societies for the Promotion of Fine Arts in Turin, Genoa, Florence, Naples and Trieste.
Photographic archive
The Matteucci Institute archive mainly contains photos of paintings and protagonists belonging to the artistic, literary and musical world from 1800 to 1930. It consists of over 30,000 images for the most part 18x24 format. Catalogued by author and provided with technical data and information about their origin, they are an essential instrument for any type of historical-bibliographical research. In time, the main nucleus, made up of the Ojetti archive, rich documentation of the pictorial and sculptural Italian and foreign production between 19th and 20th century, has been enriched by parts of other important photographic archives: Somaré, Barsotti from Florence (Tuscan painting), Di Gennaro (Neapolitan painting), Francesco and Maria Pospisil (painting from Veneto). All this is constantly increased and updated with the documentary material of The Society of Fine Arts. The photographical archive of the Matteucci Institute includes also other images of great iconographic value coming from the archives of Bartolini, Bertini, Dalbono and Signorini-Vitali. On demand, the Institute provides high definition digital files (TIFF or JPEG).
Autographs archive
It consists mainly in autographs, which are for the most part unpublished and undoubtedly interesting to document the artistic activity of some protagonists lived in the second half of the 19th century. Besides the letter written by Giuseppe Bezzuoli, Giovanni Boldini, Niccolò Cannicci, Giovanni (Nino) Costa, Carlo Fornara, Vittore Grubicy, Domenico Induno, Luigi Mussini e Federico Zandomeneghi, the archive keeps the correspondence of Alaide Banti-Giovanni Boldini, Emilio Cecchi-Luigi Mazzei, Oscar Ghiglia-Guido Libertini, Filippo Palizzi-Eleuterio Pagliano, Edoardo Dalbono-Francesco P. Michetti, Renato Fucini-Francesco Bartolini, Angelo Sommaruga-Enrico Piceni, Lorenzo Viani-Giulia Giorgietti.
The Institute