La Storia dell’arte come disciplina
accademica. Ragioni e propositi di un
convegno
Gerardo de Simone
This paper presents the rationale and purpose of the conference on Art History and Academies of Fine Arts
held in Florence in November 2025, tracing the discipline’s origins to sixteenth-century Florence and Rome
(Vasari’s Accademia del Disegno, Zuccari’s Accademia di San Luca) through to its later marginalization
within Italian academic culture. It focuses in particular on Adolfo Venturi, whose polemical stance against
unqualified “amateur” art-historical teaching in the Accademie di Belle Arti — despite his own formative
ties to the Modena academy — contributed to a lasting divide between university-based art history and
its academic (Fine Arts Academy) counterpart. Surveying key figures, teaching manuals, and institutional
debates across Italy and Europe, the essay sets out the volume’s aim: to reassess the specific contribution
of Fine Arts Academies to the history and historiography of art, an area long overshadowed by university
centered narratives of the discipline