Introduction - Accademia Belle Arti Bologna

The Fine Arts Academy of Bologna is one of the
twenty State-run Fine Arts Academies in Italy
belonging to post-secondary artistic education,
distinct from the university system, whose
specificity consists in combining art theory and
practice within a single operative moment that
envisages, during the various training paths,
both workshops and theory courses.
The institution originates from the Clementine
Academy, founded in Bologna in 1710 by Luigi
Ferdinando Marsili and Giampietro Zanotti in
continuity with the cultural legacy of the
Carraccesque Accademia degli Incamminati.
For nearly a century its most eminent
members successively taught Figure and
Architecture: from Cignani, Franceschini,
Creti, Crespi, the Bibiena family, up to Angelo
G. Piò, Vittorio M. Bigari, Vincenzo Martinelli,
Ubaldo and Gaetano Gandolfi. Its insertion into
a national education system came about with
the Napoleonic foundation (1802) of the
Academies of Milan and Bologna, providing
with courses in common: Painting, Sculpture,
Architecture, Perspective, Ornate, Figure,
Anatomy, Engraving.
The Bolognese Academy was located in the ex-
Jesuit Noviciate, which it still occupies. After
taking a variety of names (Nazionale, Reale,
Pontificia, Regia), has surrendered, in 1882,
the Pinacoteca and the duty of protection and
conservation to the present-day
Soprintendenza per il Patrimonio Storico e
Artistico, a sort of National Trust.
Following the Gentile Reform in 1923 the legal
framework was outlined, which – albeit with
some modifications, such as the introductions
of complementary courses in 1970 – governed
the Italian Fine Arts Academies until the
enforcement of reform law no. 508 passed on
21st December 1999, thanks to which the
curricula and the whole teaching organisation
has been reorganised.
The recent exhibition “Figure del Novecento/2”
has revealed the presence of artists who have
studied at the Fine Arts Academy of Bologna in
the contemporary arts system: from the
inventor of E.T. Carlo Rambaldi to Luigi Ontani,
from the cartoonist Magnus to the theatrical
experimentations of Romeo and Claudia
Castellucci (Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio).


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