Casa Falugi
You gave me the best present of my life bringing me to visit this house.
Cesare Zavattini to Giovanni Negri
Pietro Ghizzardi’s artistic adventure in Casa Falugi during the summer of 1969, made possible by the far-sightedness and intolerance towards the communis opinio of its owner, Fauzia Falugi, represents a unicum in the history of the European irregular art. The iconographical legacy of this series of frescoes is recognised until today as one of the most remarkable Outsider Art works internationally.
In a continuum that takes form and stretches along the walls of the two floors in the small Napoleonic villa (end of the 18th century), Pietro Ghizzardi’s imaginary turns out in its entirety: portraits of historical characters, friends, popular myths, sacred stories, cinema stars, wild animals and pets coexist in the artist’s itinerant fresco, realised with self-produced colours (soot, ground bricks, soil) and perfected with the romza, rumex herbs, used as fixative.
The walls of this villa are therefore a kind of gigantic iconographic itinerary through the artist’s expressive repertoire, where, as a synthesis of the pictorial scenes, there are numerous textual records: Ghizzardi captions or widens the contents of his paintings, he extends its meanings and investigates its hidden motives through his language full of grammatical errors but charged with expressivity.
In 1985 the magazine FMR dedicated a broad reportage to that what Zavattini defined the “Sistine Chapel of the Bassa”. Previously, in 1978, Vogue Italy published an extensive piece on Casa Falugi, edited by Gustavo Marchesi.
Photos © Nicolò Cecchella
Visits
Casa Falugi is to this day a private house, it can therefore be visited exclusively through a reservation, depending on the availability of the owners and the housekeeper.
In order for guided visits to take place, it is necessary to book fairly in advance.
To book a visit you can contact the staff of the Casa Museo Al Belvedere “Pietro Ghizzardi” and the Cultural Association “Pietro Ghizzardi” – Documenting Centre and Historical Archive.
Reservations
To book a visit online you can send an email to info@pietroghizzardi.com specifying the day and time you would like to visit and the number of visitors.
For a telephone reservation please call: +39 340 50 72 384 or +39 342 96 37 325, from Monday to Friday from 9 to 12:30 pm and from 2:30 to 6 pm. 10:30 to 6:30 pm on Saturdays and Sundays.
Informazioni
Casa Museo Al Belvedere “Pietro Ghizzardi”
Associazione Culturale “Pietro Ghizzardi” – Centro Documentale e Archivio Storico
via De Rossi, 27/B 42022 Boretto (RE)
Telephone: +39 340 50 72 384 | +39 342 96 37 325
Mail: info@pietroghizzardi.com