Le mie memorie. Francesco Hayez

Francesco Hayez’s fascinating life as an artist is traced in the Memoirs dictated to his friend and noblewoman Giuseppina Negroni Prati Morosini between 1869 and 1875.

Two versions exist of that text: the edition published in 1890 and the original manuscript preserved at the Brera Academy, richer in news and marked by a more colloquial tone. The two editions are compared here for the first time in a new critical edition that, in the light of the most recent studies, offers a timely account of the artistic scene of the time, the artist’s relations with power, and his intellectual and worldly relations against the backdrop of a century of great change.

Complementing them is published the essay L’ultimo dei pittori romantici (1891) in which Camillo Boito, who had had a long association with Hayez, recovering the materials suppressed in the first edition gives us a vivid image of the artist, outside of all officialdom.

ELENA LISSONI – An art historian, she holds a PhD in Philosophical, Artistic, Theatrical and Cinematic Disciplines. Her studies focus on the history of collecting and restoration in the 19th century.

FERNANDO MAZZOCCA – In addition to being among the leading scholars of the neoclassical, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, he is the foremost expert on Francesco Hayez, of whom he has curated several exhibitions. His extensive scholarly output also covers the history of collecting, art literature and the relationship between the arts, literature and music.

EDOARDO SALA – A graduate in art history, he was a collaborator of the Historical Archive and Historical Library “Giuseppe Bossi” at the Brera Academy from 2018 to 2024. The history of the Braidense institution is the focus of his studies, including the critical-biographical essay dedicated to the secretary and professor of art history Giulio Carotti (Turin 1852 – Milan 1922).