Image: Ottone Rosai, Autoritratto con Palazzo Vecchio. Museo Novecento, Florence
Museo Novecento in Florence will resume its focus visits dedicated to ‘Ottone Rosai. Poeta innanzitutto’ in September, with sessions scheduled for 7 and 21 September at 4:30 p.m. The exhibition, curated by Sergio Risaliti, is on view at the museum from 7 March through 4 October 2026 and brings together works from the Lascito Rosai and the Alberto Della Ragione Collection.
The exhibition is devoted to Ottone Rosai (Florence, 1895–Ivrea, 1957), whom the museum describes as one of the significant protagonists of 20th-century Italian art. Its central premise is a comparison between paintings from the artist’s bequest and works held in the Alberto Della Ragione Collection, reunited for the first time in a single exhibition path.
Arranged across two distinct spaces, the presentation examines subjects and places associated with Rosai, while also considering his relationship with Florence and with the intellectual figures of his period. The exhibition is supplemented by documents from the Gabinetto Scientifico Letterario G.P. Vieusseux, Archivio Contemporaneo Alessandro Bonsanti, adding archival material to the paintings and providing historical and cultural context for the artist’s work.
The September visits are organised by Fondazione MUS.E and are intended for young people and adults. According to the museum’s programme, the guided route focuses on Rosai’s ties to the cultural environment of his era, using portraits of writers, literary figures, historians and art critics as points of entry. These include works from the celebrated ‘Amici’ series and the ‘Tondini’, small paintings in circular formats that record the network of intellectual relationships surrounding the painter.
The tour also includes a selection of landscapes associated with Rosai’s vision of Florence. Museum materials describe these works as expressions of the city as an inner subject and as a source for the artist’s personal “theatre of life”; the visit is accompanied by readings drawn from biographical texts and writings by some of the literary figures he portrayed. The programme has a stated duration of one hour and 15 minutes.
Both focus visits take place at Museo Novecento, Piazza Santa Maria Novella 10, Florence. Advance booking is compulsory. Reservations can be made through Fondazione MUS.E at 055 0541450 or info@musefirenze.it. The museum, inaugurated in 2014, is dedicated to 20th- and 21st-century art and presents Florence’s civic collections, including the Alberto Della Ragione Collection and the Ottone Rosai bequest, which entered the city’s holdings in 1963 at the wishes of Rosai’s widow, Francesca Fei, and his brother, Oreste.
