The 2019 exhibition at the Musei San Domenico in Forlì presents the great art of nineteenth century Italy, in the period between the closing phase of romanticism and the artistic experiments of the new century, between the Unification of Italy and the Great War.
The well-known phrase attributed to one of the protagonists of Italy’s Risorgimento, Massimo d'Azeglio, “Now that we have made Italy, we must make Italians”, encapsulates a key reflection on Italian history and on how, in the years following the Unification of Italy, a national identity was created and developed and how the autobiography of a nation was depicted. It leads to a consideration of how Italians, who had previously been divided among different local political, social and cultural realities, experienced the aspiration and the reality of becoming one people, sharing a common history.
The exhibition contains a selection of excellent works, many chosen from those presented at the great National Exhibitions, from the earliest edition in Florence in 1861, to those hosted in Rome, Turin and Florence in 1911 to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Italian Unity; while many of these were award-winning works, others were considered outrageous. The division of the selected works into sections enables the exhibition to retrace the course of different genres, from the historical genre, to the representation of modern life, to the art of social commentary, to portraiture, to landscape, to veduta and to the new experimentations.This exhibition will present, for the first time, a comparison between some of the masterpieces then displayed in Florence and the new protagonists of art who lived in the same period of the exhibition.
The opening and closing fireworks of Hayez and Segantini undoubtedly trace a symbolic boundary. Yet this boundary encompasses the recovery of classicism and the renewal of a century. Both forms in both artists.

Information and booking
tel. +39.199.15.11.34
tel. +39.0543.36217 (groups only)
Mail: mostraforli@civita.it


Visiting hours
From Tuesday to Friday: 9.30 am - 7.00 pm
Saturday, Sunday, holidays, April 22th and 29th: 9.30 am - 8.00 pm
The box office closes one hour before time stated.
Closed on Mondays.


Tickets
Adult € 12
Reduced fee € 10: for groups (more than 15 people),
children 15-18, senior (over 65), special conventions
holders (see the list at the entrance of museum), students.