Federico Zeri (12 August 1921 – 5 October 1998) was an Italian

art historian Art history is the study of artistic works made throughout human history. Among other topics, it studies art’s formal qualities, its impact on societies and cultures, and how artistic styles have changed throughout history. Traditionally, the ...

specialised in

Italian Renaissance painting Italian Renaissance painting is the painting of the period beginning in the late 13th century and flourishing from the early 15th to late 16th centuries, occurring in the Italian Peninsula, which was at that time divided into many political stat ...

. He wrote for the Italian newspaper ''

La Stampa (English: "The Press") is an Italian daily newspaper published in Turin with an average circulation of 87,143 copies in May 2023. Distributed in Italy and other European nations, it is one of the oldest newspapers in Italy. Until the late 1970 ...

'', and was a well known television-personality in Italy. Zeri was born in central

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

, and graduated from

Sapienza University of Rome The Sapienza University of Rome (), formally the Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", abbreviated simply as Sapienza ('Wisdom'), is a Public university, public research university located in Rome, Italy. It was founded in 1303 and is ...

in 1945. Not wishing to enter the academic world, he worked in the Ministry of Public Education until 1952. In 1948 he was nominated director of

Galleria Spada The Galleria Spada is a museum in Rome, which is housed in the Palazzo Spada on Piazza Capo di Ferro. The palazzo is also famous for its façade and for the forced perspective gallery by Francesco Borromini. The gallery exhibits paintings from t ...

in Rome. In 1963 Zeri was among the founding members of the

Getty Villa The Getty Villa is an educational center and an art museum located at the easterly end of the Malibu coast in the Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States. One of two campuses of th ...

's board of trustees. He left in 1984, after his argument that the Getty kouros was a forgery and should not be bought, was rejected. Following this episode, Zeri became notorious for denouncing forgeries and misattributions. In 1984, when four students in

Livorno Livorno () is a port city on the Ligurian Sea on the western coast of the Tuscany region of Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of 152,916 residents as of 2025. It is traditionally known in English as Leghorn ...

hoaxed both the city and Modigliani experts into believing that a group of sculptures they have made were authentic, he was one of the few who called on their amateurish style. Zeri also argued that some of the frescoes in the

Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi The Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi (; ) is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Order of Friars Minor Conventual in Assisi, a town in the Umbria region in central Italy, where Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis was born and died. It is a pa ...

, were made by

Pietro Cavallini Pietro Cavallini (1259 – ) was an Italian painter and mosaic designer working during the late Middle Ages. Biography Little is known about his biography, though it is known he was from Rome, since he signed ''pictor romanus''. His first nota ...

and not

Giotto Giotto di Bondone (; – January 8, 1337), known mononymously as Giotto, was an List of Italian painters, Italian painter and architect from Florence during the Late Middle Ages. He worked during the International Gothic, Gothic and Italian Ren ...

. Zeri's insistence that a painting can be attributed to an artist, by means of a careful examination or

connoisseur A connoisseur (French language, French Reforms of French orthography, traditional, pre-1835, spelling of , from Middle-French , then meaning 'to be acquainted with' or 'to know somebody/something') is a person who has a great deal of knowledge ...

ship, without resort to external evidence such as documents or dates, met controversial responses. Zeri edited and researched catalogues of the collections of many institutions, including the Frederick Mason Perkins collection in the Sacro Convento in

Assisi Assisi (, also ; ; from ; Central Italian: ''Ascesi'') is a town and comune of Italy in the Province of Perugia in the Umbria region, on the western flank of Monte Subasio. It is generally regarded as the birthplace of the Latin poet Prope ...

; Accademia Carrara; Museo Civico Amedeo Lia,

La Spezia La Spezia (, or ; ; , in the local ) is the capital city of the province of La Spezia and is located at the head of the Gulf of La Spezia in the southern part of the Liguria region of Italy. La Spezia is the second-largest city in the Liguria ...

;

, Rome;

The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the third-largest museum in the world and the largest art museum in the Americas. With 5.36 million v ...

, New York;

The Walters Art Museum The Walters Art Museum is a public art museum located in the Mount Vernon neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland. Founded and opened in 1934, it holds collections from the mid-19th century that were amassed substantially by major American art an ...

, Baltimore. and Narodna Galerija in

Ljubljana {{Infobox settlement , name = Ljubljana , official_name = , settlement_type = Capital city , image_skyline = {{multiple image , border = infobox , perrow = 1/2/2/1 , total_widt ...

(with Ksenija Rozman). Zeri died at the age of 77, in his villa in Mentana on 5 October 1998. He bequeathed his estate to the

University of Bologna The University of Bologna (, abbreviated Unibo) is a Public university, public research university in Bologna, Italy. Teaching began around 1088, with the university becoming organised as guilds of students () by the late 12th century. It is the ...

, complete with his

library A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...

and papers, a collection of about 400 ancient

inscription Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...

s and a grand collection of photographs. Most photographs documented artworks from Italy and elsewhere, some done by himself and some acquired from other collections, including part of the collection of Evelyn Sandberg-Vavalà. The collections and accompanying database are managed, partly digitized, by the Federico Zeri Foundation. All through his life, Zeri maintained close connections with

Bernard Berenson Bernard Berenson (June 26, 1865 – October 6, 1959) was an American art historian specializing in the Renaissance. His book ''The Drawings of the Florentine Painters'' was an international success. His wife Mary is thought to have had a large ...

, Roberto Longhi, and his teacher Pietro Toesca. He taught art history at the University of Rome, and had visiting positions at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

, where he delivered a series of lectures on Lauro De Bosis in 1962, and at the

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

in New York.

References

External links

Zeri Foundation
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Zeri, Federico 1921 births 1998 deaths Writers from Rome Italian art historians Italian art critics Italian art curators Members of the Académie des beaux-arts 20th-century Italian historians Directors of museums in Italy Sapienza University of Rome alumni 20th-century Italian male writers Italian male non-fiction writers

References

Further reading

External links