«Finché la scuola non sarà provveduta di abbondante materiale illustrativo, l’arte vi resterà lettera morta». La riforma Gentile e la costituzione di collezioni scolastiche e di sussidi didattici per l’insegnamento della Storia dell’Arte nei Licei (1923-1

«As long as the school is not provided with abundant illustrative material, art will remain a dead letter». The Gentile reform and the establishment of school collections and teaching aids of Art History in High Schools (1923-1943)

Abstract

This paper takes its starting point from the introduction of Art History as a compulsory teaching in the licei curriculum by the Gentile reform of 1923, in order to focus attention on a subject that has so far been ignored by scholastic and artistic historiography: the initiatives promoted by Minister Gentile and his successors to set up, in Italian licei, specially equipped classrooms and organic collections of teaching materials and aids for the teaching of the new discipline. This process, which took place during the twenty years of Fascism, was extensive, as can be seen from the rich ministerial documentation available, and involved art historians and scholars. It contributed, albeit amidst ups and downs, to consolidating the new high school teaching and raising the level of art education, as well as facilitating the promotion of a shared national visual canon through school collections of specialised publications, photographs and slides of monuments and works of art etc.