Gli insegnamenti teorici all’Accademia
di Belle Arti di Carrara dall’origine alla
Restaurazione: docenti e materiale
didattico
Marco Ciampolini
This essay reconstructs the slow emergence of theoretical instruction — and specifically Art History — at
the Academy of Fine Arts in Carrara, founded in 1769 with an exclusively practical, trade-oriented mission.
Drawing on archival inventories, teaching regulations, and correspondence, it traces the Academy’s
initially meagre didactic resources (plaster casts, a handful of books) through the Napoleonic-era reforms
of 1804-05, when new instructors such as Angelo Pizzi and Paolo Bargigli sought to align the school with
neoclassical taste and international models. Particular attention is paid to the creation of a chair of “History
and Mythology,” held by Giovanni Fantoni (Labindo) and his successors, which the author identifies as the
functional precursor of art-historical teaching proper at Carrara.