Full Name: Salmi, Mario
Other Names:
- Mario Salmi
Gender: male
Date Born: 1889
Date Died: 1980
Place Born: San Giovanni Valdarno, Arezzo, Tuscany, Italy
Place Died: Rome, Lazio, Italy
Home Country/ies: Italy
Subject Area(s): architecture (object genre), Italian (culture or style), Italian Renaissance-Baroque styles, Renaissance, Romanesque, sculpture (visual works), and Tuscan (culture or style)
Overview
Historian of Romanesque architecture, Tuscan sculpture and the early Italian Renaissance. Salmi received a law degree in 1910, but was won over to art history while attending the art history school of Adolfo Venturi at Rome University. The following year, 1911, Salmi published his first article in the journal L’Arte followed by numerous other pieces on Romanesque architecture and sculpture. Salmi was apppointed professor of medieval and modern art history at the university in Pisa, establishing the Instituto di Storia dell’Arte in 1927 and its study library (with Matteo Marangoni), Biblioteca del Gabinetto di Storia dell’Arte, in 1930. In 1929, Salmi moved to the University of Florence. There he founded the Instituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento in 1937. His students included Alessandro Marabottini. After World War II, Salmi established the art review journal Commentari in 1949. He was called to the University of Rome in 1950, which had been reorganized after World War II, assuming (Adolfo) Venturi’s position as chair of the Renaissance and modern art history. Salmi brought the Commentari with him, co-edited now with Venturi’s son, Lionello Venturi. He oversaw the creation of the multicultural 15-volume scholarly encyclopedia for art, Enciclopedia universale dell’arte, which appeared in 1958 and in English a year later as the Encyclopedia of World Art. As president of the Consiglio Superiore dele Antichità e Belle Arti until 1971, Salmi worked in the field of patronage and the evaluation of works of art. He wrote about many aspects of Florentine art, including manuscript illuminations, and a monograph on Piero della Francesca. Notes about Salmi’s opinions on Giotto appear in Richard Offner‘s annotated catalog of the 1937 Mostra Giottesca. His papers and photographs collection are held at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, CA. In 1989 a conference sponsored by the Accademia Petrarca di Lettere, Arti e Scienze of Arezzo was held in commemoration of the centenary of Salmi’s birth. His students in Pisa included Enzo Carli and, in Florence, Roberto Salvini.
Selected Bibliography
and de Tolnay, Charles. Michelangelo: artista, pensatore, scrittore. 2 vols. Novara: Comitato nazionale per le onotanze a Michelangelo/Istituto geografico de Agostini,1965; and Khvoshinsky, Basile. I pittori toscani dal XIII al XVI secolo. 2 vols. Rome: E. Loescher, 1912-1914; and De Ruggieri, Raffaello. Le chiese rupestri di Matera. Rome: De Luca,1966; The Complete Work of Michelangelo. 2 vols. London: Macdonald, 1966; L’architettura romanica in Toscana. Milan: Bestetti e Tumminelli, 1928; La Basilica di San Salvatore di Spoleto. Florence: Olschki, 1951, [series editor] Enciclopedia universale dell’arte. 15 vols. Venice/Rome: Istituto per la Collaborazione Culturale, 1958-1967, English, Encyclopedia of World Art. 15 vols. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959-1968.
Sources
d’Onofrio, Mario. “Salmi, Mario.” The Dictionary of Art 27: 635; Ladis, Andrew. “The Unmaking of a Connoisseur.” in, Offner, Richard. A Discerning Eye: Essays on Early Italian Painting. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998, p.19, note 1; “Premessa.” Scritti di storia dell’arte in onore di Mario Salmi. vol. 1. Rome: De Luca, 1961, pp. vii-xi; [essays on Salmi’s scholarship:] Studi di storia dell’arte sul Medioevo e il Rinascimento nel centenario della nascita di Mario Salmi: atti del convegno internazionale Arezzo-Firenze, 16-19 novembre 1989. vol. 1. Florence: Polistampa, 1992, specifically, Russo, Eugenio. “Il contributo di Mario Salmi agli studi sull’arte dell’età paleocritiana e altomedievale.” pp. 37-101, Gatti Perrer, Maria Luisa. “Il contributo di Mario Salmi agli studi sull’arte Lombarda.” pp. 137-149, Ciardi Duprè Dal Poggetto, Maria Grazia. “Il contributo di Mario Salmi agli studi sulla miniatrua italiana: un primo rescoconto generale.” pp. 151-162, Paolini, Maria Grazia. “Mario Salmi e l’arte nell’aretino: riflessioni e spunti di ricerca.” pp. 163-194; Salvini, Roberto. “Ricordo di Mario Salmi.” in, “Popoli e paesi nella cultura altomedievale” Settimane di Studi del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo 29 (1983): 47; Mario Salmi: storico dell’arte e umanista. Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’alto Medioevo, 1991; [obituaries:] Angelis d’Ossat, Guglielmo. [untitled]. Palladio n.s. 3 [30] fascicule part 1/4 (1980): 6; Baldini, Umberto. “Commemorazione di Mario Salmi, Presidente Onorario dell’Accademia Petrarca.” Atti e memorie della Accademia Petrarca di lettere arti e scienze 44 (1981): 1-12; Scapecchi, Angelo. “Omelia nella Messa di trigesima del prof. Mario Salmi.” Atti e memorie della Accademia Petrarca di lettere arti e scienze 44 (1981): 13-16.