Aemilia Ars per Bologna. L'arte e la città (Aemilia Ars for Bologna. Art and the City)

On Thursday, June 4, 2026, at 12:00 PM, the Civic Medieval Museum of Bologna inaugurates the exhibition Aemilia Ars for Bologna. Art and the City.

The exhibition, promoted by the Civic Museums of Ancient Art and curated by Silvia Battistini, Giancarlo Benevolo, and Mark Gregory D'Apuzzo, aims to highlight the cultural as well as aesthetic importance of the Aemilia Ars movement.

The Aemilia Ars joint-stock company was founded on December 3, 1898, in Bologna to promote an innovative project in the field of artistic and artisanal design and production. It represented the natural continuation of a complex cultural experience that had developed in the city from the 1880s onward: during the restoration of several historic religious and civic buildings, the most up-to-date principles developed in France and England — already being applied in other Italian regions — were adopted. The need to reconstruct architectural, decorative, and crafted elements in harmony with ancient structures fostered the development of expertise and methodologies that were later applied to the production of everyday objects.

For this reason, the statute of the new Aemilia Ars company declared its intention to “promote and facilitate the study, quality production, and marketability of decorative arts and artistic industries in the Emilia region, with the specific aim that everything related to household furnishing and interior decoration acquire greater practicality and artistic value, so that increasing demand and production may benefit artists, industrialists, and workers.”

Within just a few years, the name Aemilia Ars became associated with a renewed and modern taste, deeply rooted in the revival of decorative models inspired by medieval and Renaissance art.

The company brought together entrepreneurs, restoration theorists, experts in architectural history, artists who developed original designs, and artisans who brought them to life. This created a cultural environment that survived even after the company’s commercial closure in 1903.

The experience permeated Bolognese society so deeply that it also influenced the teaching methods of municipal and religious art and vocational schools for both men and women, which trained dozens of artisans to work in local workshops and companies.

Particularly successful was the education of girls and women working in the textile field. A virtuous system developed between production and market demand, allowing the embroidery and lace department to survive over time, lasting until the 1980s.

The exhibition pays special attention to the evolution of taste within Bolognese society and to the complex work involved in project development and artisan training. It also offers the opportunity to admire Aemilia Ars materials that are usually not on display, drawn from the permanent collections of the Civic Museums of Ancient Art (Davia Bargellini Museum, Municipal Art Collections, Vittorio Zironi Textile and Tapestry Museum).

The exhibition will remain open until September 6, 2026