[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.16″ global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” type=”4_4″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n
Type<\/strong>: Professional archive<\/p>\n Arrangement and structure:<\/strong> [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” column_structure=”2_3,1_3″][et_pb_column _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” type=”2_3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n Creator:<\/strong> Giuseppe Arrigoni (Bergamo, 1915 \u2013 Bergamo, 2006)<\/p>\n Biographical note:<\/strong> The circumstances that led him to take up restoration appear to have been more closely related to the circumstances of the time and his family environment: in 1934, he began attending the workshop in Milan of Mauro Pellicioli, the renowned restorer from Bergamo, where his elder brother Luciano had already been working for several years. With this wealth of experience behind him, Arrigoni embarked on an independent career as a restorer, during which, over the following twenty-five years, he undertook numerous restoration projects involving works of exceptional artistic value, both locally and in many regions of northern Italy, as documented by the records preserved in the archive. After an intensive career spanning almost sixty years, Giuseppe Arrigoni drew up a declaration of \u201cCessation of Activity\u201d in 1983. He nevertheless continued to carry out small-scale works, mainly for private clients, while devoting himself primarily to painting as an artistic pursuit until shortly before his death in 2006.<\/p>\n RES.I Database \u2013 Restorer record Giuseppe Arrigoni<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” type=”1_3″][et_pb_image _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” src=”https:\/\/www.associazionegiovanniseccosuardo.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/197-234Onet-1.jpg” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″ admin_label=”Immagine”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_image _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″ src=”https:\/\/www.associazionegiovanniseccosuardo.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GA_002.jpg”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_image _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” src=”https:\/\/www.associazionegiovanniseccosuardo.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GA_003.jpg” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_image _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” src=”https:\/\/www.associazionegiovanniseccosuardo.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/158-170.jpg” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″ admin_label=”Immagine”][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” type=”4_4″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n Date range of the archive<\/strong>: 1912\u20132001<\/p>\n Type and date of acquisition:<\/strong> Donation \u2013 3 June 1997<\/p>\n Documentation:<\/strong> Access:<\/strong> [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Type: Professional archive Arrangement and structure:An analysis of the organisation of the documents suggests that the restorer intended to create files, each containing separately all the documents relating to individual restoration projects, with the aim of arranging his records according to a logical system that largely reflected the requirements of his professional activity. It has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive-preserved"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.associazionegiovanniseccosuardo.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.associazionegiovanniseccosuardo.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.associazionegiovanniseccosuardo.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.associazionegiovanniseccosuardo.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.associazionegiovanniseccosuardo.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55663"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.associazionegiovanniseccosuardo.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55665,"href":"https:\/\/www.associazionegiovanniseccosuardo.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55663\/revisions\/55665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.associazionegiovanniseccosuardo.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.associazionegiovanniseccosuardo.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.associazionegiovanniseccosuardo.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
An analysis of the organisation of the documents suggests that the restorer intended to create files, each containing separately all the documents relating to individual restoration projects, with the aim of arranging his records according to a logical system that largely reflected the requirements of his professional activity. It has not been possible to determine whether this arrangement was established originally or at a later date, perhaps on the occasion of the donation of the archive.
The fonds has been rearranged and inventoried, and a printed inventory is available for consultation. <\/p>\n
Giuseppe Arrigoni was born in Bergamo on 1 April 1915.
Between 1927 and 1930, he attended the \u201cAndrea Fantoni\u201d School of Art in Bergamo, then directed by Professor Francesco Domeneghini, his teacher, where he took drawing and watercolour classes and acquired a knowledge of perspective and geometry. He subsequently completed his training in the studio of Giovanni Fasciotti, a painter and decorator who had also been a pupil of Domeneghini. There, he was able to refine his drawing skills and began to familiarise himself with mural painting techniques. <\/p>\n
In the workshop, he learned the restoration techniques and intervention methods used at the time, particularly those practised in the Bergamo area. He can indeed be considered a worthy representative of the group of artists who made Bergamo a cradle of this art.
After his first years of apprenticeship, Arrigoni became one of Pellicioli\u2019s closest collaborators, and together they took part in the most important restoration projects of those years, both in Italy and abroad. Between 1935 and 1938, he accompanied Pellicioli to Hungary, together with his brother Luciano and other restorers from Bergamo, to restore the Renaissance frescoes that had recently been discovered in the cathedral and royal palace of Esztergom, and subsequently travelled to S\u00fcmeg to work on the frescoes by Franz Anton Maulbertsch. During these years, he also worked in Perugia (1939), restoring Perugino\u2019s frescoes in the Collegio del Cambio, and in Mantua, on Mantegna\u2019s frescoes in the Camera degli Sposi (1939).
Nel 1939 \u00e8 a Roma a lavorare presso il neonato Istituto Centrale per il Restauro, dove il Pellicioli era stato nominato restauratore capo e il fratello Luciano aiuto-restauratore. Da quell\u2019 anno fino al 1943 iniziano a susseguirsi importanti commissioni per alcuni tra i principali cicli di dipinti murali nazionali, ai quali lavorer\u00e0 sempre sotto la direzione del Pellicioli e in stretta collaborazione col fratello e l\u2019amico Pigazzini. I rapporti con l’Istituto Centrale per il Restauro continuano anche durante gli anni particolarmente difficili della guerra e nel dopoguerra quando, a seguito dei bombardamenti vengono danneggiate alcune delle opere di maggior rilievo artistico del paese che restaurer\u00e0 insieme a tutta l\u2019\u00e9quipe del Pellicioli: a Vicenza, presso Villa Valmarana dei Nani, eseguono lo strappo degli affreschi del Tiepolo, a Padova nella Cappella Scrovegni restaurano gli affreschi di Giotto e a Milano operano nel refettorio di Santa Maria delle Grazie sul Cenacolo di Leonardo. <\/p>\n
During his independent career, he worked on a great many works of art of varying types and techniques. Particularly noteworthy is the exceptionally high number of fresco detachments he carried out: the archival documentation records more than forty such interventions, followed by restoration, involving the detachment of individual frescoes but often also of entire cycles covering very large surfaces. Among his most important projects were the restoration of San Pietro al Monte in Civate, in the province of Como; the detachment and reinstallation of mural paintings in Casei Gerola (Pavia, 1966) and of frescoes by Romanino in Pisogne (Brescia, 1966); the recovery of mural paintings in monolithic churches in Ethiopia (1967\u20131968); and the restoration of Mazzoni\u2019s sculptural group depicting the Lamentation over the Dead Christ in the Church of the Carmine in Brescia (1979). He also carried out numerous interventions in towns throughout the Bergamo valleys, including Clusone, Averara and Santa Brigida, as well as in the city of Bergamo. The most significant work of his career in the Bergamo area may be considered the restoration carried out at the cloistered Dominican monastery of Matris Domini in Bergamo, where he undertook several interventions over a ten-year period beginning in 1966. These brought to light mural paintings that critics immediately recognised as among the most important surviving examples of Lombard art of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Numerous further interventions on frescoes and paintings on canvas were commissioned by the Superintendencies for Cultural Heritage, art galleries and municipal administrations in Lombardy, Liguria, Piedmont, Veneto and Tuscany. <\/p>\n
The fonds documents Giuseppe Arrigoni\u2019s restoration activity and conservation work on works of pictorial art.
The preserved documentation is predominantly accounting and tax-related, consisting of estimates and invoices.
Newspaper clippings and articles from periodicals, collected to supplement and provide evidence of the restoration projects undertaken, are abundant.
The photographic material is substantial and appears to derive, in part, from the archives of the Superintendency.<\/p>\n
The archive is subject to a legal restriction on account of its particularly significant historical interest. A request for consultation must therefore be submitted in advance to the Archival and Bibliographic Superintendency of Lombardy (Soprintendenza Archivistica e Bibliografica della Lombardia) using the appropriate form.
The fonds may be consulted during the Association\u2019s opening hours, subject to a written request sent by email to
asri@associazionegiovanniseccosuardo.it<\/a><\/p>\n