Bologna, the capital city of the province of Reggio Emilia, home of the oldest university in the world, a vast and exquisitely conserved city center, and what is considered by many to be the epitome of culinary greatness – it is also home to the world of Giorgio Morandi, with a visit to the Morandi Museum providing a necessary stepping stone from the absorption of early Renaissance art to a more recent artist who cherished and embodied this art tradition in his own work as he strived daily to depict the sublime in nature.

Giorgio Motandi, Still Life, 1997

Giorgio Morandi, Still Life, 1949

Giorgio Morandi, Still Life, 1960

Giorgio Morandi, Landscape, 1942

Morandi Museum – Situated inside Palazzo d’Accursio in Piazza Maggiore, the Museum has been open since 1993 thanks to a considerable donation to Comune di Bologna by Maria Teresa Morandi, the artist’s sister and is the widest and most relevant public collection dedicated to Giorgio Morandi. The collection consists of 62 paintings, 18 watercolours, 92 drawings, 78 etchings, 2 sculptures and 2 etched sheets.

Piazza di Porta Maggiore, 6. Tel: 051 203332. Open 9:00-18:30, Tuesday-Friday, 10-18:30 Saturdays and Sundays. Free entrance.

Casa Morandi – The house in via Fondazza 36, where Giorgio Morandi lived and worked from 1910 to 1964 was opened to the public on 17th October 2009. Vases, bottles, and still life objects have been arranged in the atelier as Morandi would have left them, with his easel and bed. The furnishings of the family and part of the collection of the works of ancient art that belonged to Morandi are also on display; the rest of the site has been designed to offer to the visitor a path which narrates the main periods of time of the life of the master, from family relations, to his artistic education, from the encounters with characters of the world of cinema and art to the work in his studio.
Open Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays from 11:00-16:00. Free entrance.

MAMbo, Museum of Modern Art in Bologna – With its permanent collection the museum traces the history of Italian art from World War II to the present day, as seen through the experience of the former Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, first founded in 1925.

Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna (National Gallery of Bologna) – The National Gallery, tucked away under the arcades in Via Belli Arti, celebrates the city’s artistic and spiritual past from the 14th to the 16th century. There are some fine examples of works by fathers of baroque Guido Reni and the Carracci brothers. Deeply influenced by the Counter Reformation that was sweeping the country, the paintings are highly emotionally charged and deeply religious. Among the Italian old masters, Raphael’s Ecstasy of St Cecilia and El Greco’s Last Supper should not be missed.
Via Belle Arti 56. Tel: 05142 09411. Tuesday-Sunday, 9-17:00.

Giotto, Polyptych with Holy Virgin and Saints

Niccolo dell’Arca’s Pieta, 1485, in the Santa Maria della Vita church in Bologna (About a 3 minute walk from the Museo Morandi)