Flora. The enchantment of flowers in Italian art from the twentieth century to today. The exhibition at the Magnani-Rocca Foundation in Mamiano di Traversetolo/Parma-Carlo Franza’s blog

Boldini, Segantini, Previati, Chini, Balla, Boccioni, Severini, Depero, Wildt, De Chirico, Savinio, Casorati, Donghi, Morandi, De Pisis, Carrà, Campigli, Mafai, Guttuso, Fontana, Schifano, Kounellis, Paolini and others. The flowers, with their ephemeral beauty and their symbolic charge, have inspired generations of artists. With the arrival of spring, the Magnani-Rocca Foundation celebrates this eternal subject with a unique exhibition: over 150 works, from the masters of symbolism to contemporary art, transform the villa of masterpieces into an art and poetry garden.

The exhibition ‘Flora. The enchantment of flowers in Italian art from the twentieth century to today is scheduled from March 15 to June 29, 2025 at the Villa dei Masterpieces, headquarters of the Magnani-Rocca Foundation in Mamiano di Traversetolo (Parma)immersed in the splendor of the romantic park, just restored. With its Italian garden, the English garden, the Biolago and the new contemporary garden inspired by the New Perenial Movement, the park offers a multisensory experience that changes with the succession of the seasons.
Over 150 masterpieces for a floral tribute to Italian art.
The exhibition presents over 150 “floral” masterpieces of the greatest masters of Italian art, from the late nineteenth century to the contemporary. The hydrangeas of Segantini, Longoni and Fornara, the Dalie di Previati and Donghi, the explosive magic flora of Depero and hypnotic decks of cornflowers, poppies and daisies of Casorati, the Gladiolo electrocuted by De Pisis and the chrysanthemums of De Chirico and Cremona. Next to these wonders, the rooms of the villa host a path that crosses symbolism, futurism, magical realism, abstraction and the new expressive forms of the contemporaneity.
A path between symbolism and contemporaneity with prestigious loans.

The flower is never just a flower. For Boldini it is a symbol of grace, for De Pisis a chromatic explosion and a reflection on the transience of life, for Morandi one silent meditation. Flora explores the evolution of this subject in Italian art, from the symbolic wealth of segantines and previative at the avant -garde of Balla and Depero, up to the contemporary languages ​​of Kounellis, De Maria, Gilardi, Schifano and Paolini.
The rooms of the villa of masterpieces are transformed into secret gardens, evoked by the works of Pellizza da Volpedo, Chini, Nomellini, Moggioli, Boccioni, to accommodate painted or carved flowers of the twentieth century, from symbolic to futurist ones, from cut to the silent ones to the disturbing flowers. Everything is flanked by the spaces that host the masterpieces of Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, Dürer, Titian, Goya, Canova, Burri belonging to Luigi Magnani.
Many “queens of flowers” inhabit the exhibition, in intense portraits in which the flower has an important presence as that of the protagonist, with capital works of Boldini, Tito, Zandomeneghi, Balla, Marussig, Fontana and Pasolini. The rose is the protagonist of an entire section: Morandi’s roses dialogue with those of Funi, Opppi, Cagnaccio, Pirandello and Mafai.
The works come from important museums, public institutions and private collections such as the Museum of the twentieth century of Milan, the Gallery of Modern Art e Contemporary of Rome, the Novecento Museum of Florence, the Morandi Museum of Bologna, the municipal museums of Ferrara, the GP Vieusseux scientific cabinet in Florence. The exhibition was born from the collaboration between the Magnani-Rocca Foundation and the Mart, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto, and is curated by Daniela Ferrari and Stefano Roffi. It is made thanks to the contribution of Fondazione Cariparma and Crédit Agricole Italia.
“There is no painter or painter of the twentieth century who has not painted flowers, following an intimate vocation and a very personal interpretation, a representative challenge. The flower is a simple subject, but it is also a universe of complex symbols, of sophisticated forms and therefore irresistible ” – Daniela Ferrari
The exhibition is immersed in the romantic park, a unique landscape jewel in Italy
At the same time the restoration of the romantic park that surrounds the villa of masterpieces is presented: a unique landscape jewel in Italy that extends for twelve hectares and which includes an English garden, an Italian garden and the new contemporary garden.
A green heritage with hundreds of new trees, shrubs and flowers, with exotic and monumental plants to surround the villa that was Luigi Magnani’s home. The romantic park also preserves three majestic specimens registered in the list of monumental trees in Italy: Cedrus Libani, Sequoia Sempervirens, Platanus Hybrida, which have been the subject of special care. With the addition of a biolago and the experience multisensory of the new contemporary garden inspired by the New Perenial Movement, in which visitors will be wrapped in an explosion of colors e Perfumes, immersed in a landscape that changes in the months, season after season. A restoration made thanks to the support of the Ministry of Culture with the PNRR funds. Luigi Magnani, a precursor of an surprisingly modern environmental sensitivity for his time, was among the founders of Italia Nostra, one of the first Italian environmental movements, engaged in the integral protection of the country’s cultural and environmental heritage. This pioneering vision demonstrates its profound attention to the protection of beauty and nature, in a historical period in which environmental consciousness was not yet so established.

Carlo Franza