Tomaso Buzzi, the Architect of Vittorio Cini

Valerio Terraroli, professor at the University of Verona and one of the leading scholars of the work of the brilliant and visionary architect Tomaso Buzzi from Lombardy, will speak at a conference held at the Castle of Monselice at 11:00 AM. During the lecture, he will discuss the special relationship between Tomaso Buzzi and Vittorio Cini. He will particularly focus on the work done for the Villa di Montericco, the Gallery of Palazzo Cini in Venice, and another prominent historical residence owned by Cini: the monumental complex of the Castle of Monselice and Villa Duodo Balbi Valier, for which the archive of the Institute of Art History preserves “thoughts,” designs, and original sketches.

The bond between Vittorio Cini and the brilliant and visionary architect Tomaso Buzzi (1900-1981), once described as “the most cultured of architects”, was a long-standing and affectionate one, originating from Buzzi’s established friendship with Count Cini from the 1930s, when the architect worked on the interior design of Cini’s Villa di Montericco in Monselice (1938-1942). These were the years of Tomaso Buzzi’s full professional success in the field of private architecture: he was a cultured designer, a respectful restorer, and a refined creator of homes and gardens for the rising bourgeoisie and the most progressive aristocracy. He became a sensitive arbiter of elegance, capable of blending sophisticated historicism—rich with antique references and ‘style’ setting with the Novecento and Art Deco influences of 1920s Milan. Among his many clients, the elite of the economy, politics, culture, and intellectual circles, many had ties to Vittorio Cini through business, friendship, intellectual relations, and collecting: from the Volpi di Misurata family to the antique dealer Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, from Minister Giovanni Gentile to the bibliophile and scholar Tammaro de Marinis. For Cini, Tomaso Buzzi was the architect of choice, able to give form to the desires for renewal expressed in numerous residences. In the early 1940s, alongside the furnishing and arrangement of the Villa di Rimini, Buzzi began his first interventions to modernize and update Cini’s residence on the Grand Canal, Palazzo Cini. This path culminated between 1956 and 1958 with the creation of the neoclassical oval drawing room, designed to scenographically display the 18th-century Cozzi porcelain service, and the famous spiral staircase.

The harmonious relationship between Buzzi and Count Cini, and with the Foundation established in 1951 on San Giorgio Island, led the architect to donate 138 drawings to the Cini Foundation. These included capricci, views, phantasmagorias, scenes of Venetian fêtes, ceremonies, and concerts, recently exhibited in the 2021 show Venezia è tutta d’oro. Tomaso Buzzi: disegni “fantastici” (1948–1976), curated by Valerio Terraroli, held in the evocative spaces of the Longhena Library, marking forty years since the passing of this key figure in modern Italian taste.

11:00 AM | Download the invitation.