Lionello Venturi between Italy and Brazil: from the CIHA Congress in Venice (1955) to the Sixth São Paolo Biennial (1961)

Lionello Venturi (1885-1961) returned to Italy from exile in 1945, begun in 1931 following the refusal to take an oath of loyalty to fascism. He resumed teaching at the La Sapienza University of Rome until 1955. In that year, as President of the Italian CIHA, he promoted the International Congress of Venice with the title "Venice and Europe". The Congress saw the participation of 115 scholars from all over the world, who placed the complexity of Venice's role in the arts and cultural relations with the European continent and beyond. In 1961, the year of Venturi's death, he was a member of the Organizing Committee of the VIth Biennial of São Paulo (september 1961). This paper aims to investigate the figure and role of the great Italian art historian on the two international occasions mentioned. In particular, the rich documentation on the 1955 Congress will be taken into account: letters, organizational and scientific documentation, public and programmatic speeches, public and critical reactions to the event in the general framework of the role of art history in the second post-war period in Italy and in the rest of the world. The documentation regarding the São Paolo Biennale, although incomplete, due to the sudden death of Venturi on August 15th ‘61, is one of his last public documents to join an international project.