Image: The Cultural Arts Center
The Museo Novecento in Florence is presenting 100 works from the Alberto Della Ragione Collection in an exhibition at CAMBIO Centro Culturale in Castelfiorentino. Titled ‘Cento opere dalla Raccolta Alberto Della Ragione. Da Morandi a Vedova’, the exhibition traces a complex period in 20th-century Italian art through the holdings of one of the city’s principal civic collections. It runs at CAMBIO from 3 April to 20 September 2026, according to the centre’s own exhibition listing.
The presentation is organised by Museo Novecento in collaboration with CAMBIO Centro Culturale, a co-organisation stated in the museum’s newsletter. It forms part of a temporary relocation of the Museo Novecento’s permanent collection while the Florence museum hosts ‘Baselitz. AVANTI!’, an exhibition devoted to Georg Baselitz. The official ticketing information for Florence’s civic museums confirms that the permanent collection is currently being shown at CAMBIO in Castelfiorentino.
The exhibition’s selection spans Italian artistic practices associated with the first half and middle decades of the 20th century, with the title specifically invoking Giorgio Morandi and Emilio Vedova. The museum’s collection information identifies the Alberto Della Ragione holdings as including works by Morandi, Giorgio de Chirico, Filippo de Pisis, Gino Severini, Mario Mafai, Renato Guttuso and Felice Casorati, among others. The Castelfiorentino presentation uses 100 works to examine the range of Della Ragione’s choices rather than presenting the collection simply as a sequence of canonical names.
According to the exhibition material, Della Ragione was a naval engineer as well as a committed observer and collector. He began collecting after visiting the 1931 Quadriennale, initially directing his attention toward more established artists before increasingly turning to figures who were less aligned with the official cultural system under Italy’s Fascist regime. The exhibition therefore frames the collection as a record of individual judgement during a period marked by competing artistic and political positions.
The collection has a particular civic history in Florence. The city’s museum information states that it was donated to Florence in the aftermath of the 1966 flood. The gift became a major component of the Museo Novecento’s holdings, which are dedicated to Italian art of the 20th and 21st centuries. The museum, inaugurated on 24 June 2014, presents selections from the city’s civic collections alongside temporary exhibitions, educational activity and multidisciplinary programmes.
At the Museo Novecento itself, the collection presentation is being accompanied by temporary exhibitions including ‘Baselitz. AVANTI!’, on view through 13 September 2026, and ‘Ottone Rosai. Poeta innanzitutto’, scheduled through 4 October 2026. The latter brings together works from the Ottone Rosai bequest and paintings from the Alberto Della Ragione Collection, while the Della Ragione exhibition in Castelfiorentino offers a broader view of the collection through its 100-work selection. ‘Cento opere dalla Raccolta Alberto Della Ragione. Da Morandi a Vedova’ remains at CAMBIO Centro Culturale until 20 September 2026, leaving under four weeks to see it.
