La Storia dell’arte all’Accademia di
Firenze come storia educativa e civile:
una traccia negli anni postunitari e in
Camillo Jacopo Cavallucci
Cristina Frulli
This essay traces the emergence of art history as a civic and educational discipline at the Accademia di
Belle Arti di Firenze in the decades following Italian unification, focusing on Camillo Jacopo Cavallucci and
his intellectual milieu. Building on the 1859–60 statutory reform, it follows the succession of chairs held
by Emiliani Giudici, Aleardo Aleardi and, from 1874, Cavallucci himself, situating their teaching within a
network of Risorgimento-era patriots, salons and popular-education initiatives (notably Pietro Dazzi’s
Scuole del Popolo). Drawing on unpublished correspondence, the study reconstructs Cavallucci’s ties to
figures such as Vannucci, Cavalcaselle and Villari, arguing that the Florentine Academy anticipated the
recognition of art history as a discipline central to the cultural formation of the newly unified nation.