After the alarm from the Verga Foundation, the Region announces that it intends to exercise the right of pre-emption on the plates of the author of “I Malavoglia” which last June won the Milanese Library in via Senato di Marcello Dell’Utri at auction.
The appeal to have those precious slabs – which the Library in via Senato in Milan chaired by Marcello Dell’Utri had won in the auction in June – passed into public hands was launched by Verga Foundation in the «Corriere» on Sunday 7 August. Now the Sicilian Region announces that it will exercise the envisaged right of pre-emption e who will purchase the 448 photographs taken by Giovanni Verga (1840-1922)
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The outgoing regional council announced on Tuesday 16 that it had authorized the expenditure of 225 thousand euros for the acquisition of those 327 silver bromide gelatin plates and 121 cellulose nitrate filmsextraordinary photos taken by the author de The Malavoglias which this year commemorates the centenary of his death.
“We had done it in other cases in the past. We have decided to exercise the right of pre-emption on the photographic plates of Verga due to the enormous value that those documents have ”, the outgoing president, Nello Musumeci, comments to the Corriere. «Now our offices – he adds – will do what is necessary but we are perfectly on time. The important thing was to acquire from the public patrimony an asset that, substantially and morally, belongs to Sicily. Those plates reproduce characters, places, customs linked to Verga’s literary production. Extraordinary documents to be made available to scholars ».
The photos had been jealously guarded by the great Sicilian writer. Then passed to his heirs, they remained in the Verga family until the seventies, when the last descendant, Pietro, sold them to a passionate teacher from Catania, Giovanni Garra Agosta. It was he who had the material rediscovered, granting it for publications and exhibitions, such as the prints exhibited at the Museum of Verga’s imaginary in Vizzini (Catania). When she died, the heirs put them up for sale.
The auction was held in Turin, by Bolaffi, last June 21st. To win the precious material, the Milanese Library in via Senato of Dell’Utri, in fact. Foundation that owns important funds, such as the Malaparte archive. The award to private individuals (for 235 thousand euros, including rights) had alarmed the Verga Foundation, a research institution since 1978 which, among other things, promotes the National Edition of the works. Gabriella Alfieri, president of the scientific council, explained to the «Corriere»: «The only solution is that a public body, the Sicilian Region or the Ministry of Culture, bring back this priceless heritage». All within 60 days of the auction (and therefore by 22 August).
Now the announcement of the Region. Musumeci denies having contested the photos with Rome (“In Sicily we have autonomy over cultural heritage”) and as a possible destination he now hypothesizes the Regional Photo Library in Palermo (under reorganization) or, primarily, the Verga Foundation of Catania. Which now expresses “satisfaction with the commitment shown by the Sicilian Region in exercising the right of pre-emption”, hoping that “given the deadline now very close, the administrative procedures required are carried out with the utmost promptness. The Verga Foundation could only be pleased and honored to be able to preserve and enhance that photographic heritage».
“These photos can therefore only be read in Verga’s key,” he wrote Vincenzo Consolo in the introduction to the volume by Giovanni Garra Agosta Verga photographer (published by Maimone in 1991). “Then one cannot fail to see in them the incumbency of the blacks of the hair, of the eyes, of the clothes, the blacks of harsh and sharp lava stone that invade the backgrounds against the incandescent and dazzling white of the Sicilian light”. Among the subjects there are the proud-faced peasants, like the ones on this page. There is also room for the photographic self-portrait (although it was probably his brother Mario who took it). And then the portraits of family and friends: the writers Luigi Capuana – from whom he often borrowed photographic equipment – and Federico De Roberto, the poet Cesare Pascarella. Writing to the latter, who had given him a Kodak Pocket 96, about his progress in the art of photography, Verga almost proudly claimed: “I warn you that I do everything myself.”
And, again, there are the librettists of Verdi, Arrigo Boito, and of Puccini, Giuseppe Giacosa (also father of «La Lettura», the cultural monthly of «Corriere»), the star Eleonora Duse, the publishers Treves. Then there are the landscapes: his Sicily, of course, his native Vizzini, Catania, Segesta. But also completely different horizons: Turin (the Basilica of Superga), Como, the Valtellina, the Stelvio. And then Switzerland: Bern, Lucerne.
August 16, 2022 (change August 17, 2022 | 18:38)
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