Roberto Longhi e Bernard Berenson: un rapporto impossibile e fecondo

The essay illustrates the stormy relationship between Roberto Longhi (1890–1970) and Bernard Berenson (1865–1959), which started in 1912, when Longhi wrote to Berenson offering to translate his book, Italian Painters of the Renaissance (1894–1907), still almost unknown in Italy. In reality, Longhi never carried out the promised translation, but, starting from some indications from Berenson, he developed his idea of the Italian Renaissance, in which Piero della Francesca, rediscovered by Berenson, played a role of great importance also for Venetian painting. In subsequent works, particularly in Officina Ferrarese (1934), Longhi continued to contradict Berenson, above all in the field of connoisseurship. This produced a long break in the relationship between the two scholars. While Berenson soon stopped being involved in research and devoted himself, above all, to providing advice to museums and collectors, Longhi broadened his field of investigation to problems that nineteenth-century historiography had never dealt with to find a school full of students who continued their studies. Even if conducted indirectly, theirs was undoubtedly one of the most fruitful dialogues for studying art history in the twentieth century.