Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

Milan, September 30 2019 – Tuesday 1 October, at 17.30 pm, the exhibition “Alda Merini and Alberto Casiraghy. will be inaugurated at Casa Museo Boschi Di Stefano, in via Giorgio Jan 15. Story of a Friendship”, scheduled with free admission from 2 October to 2 November.

The exhibition is part of the celebrations of the Milanese poet ten years after her death, on 1 November 2009, and is part of the broader program "Decennale Alda Merini 2009-2019", promoted and coordinated by the Municipality of Milan | Culture in collaboration with the “Alda Merini” association, which will be presented in its entirety at Palazzo Marino next October 21st.

“Alda Merini and Alberto Casiraghy. Story of a friendship" is created in collaboration with Municipio 3, the Boschi Di Stefano Foundation and the Elfo Puccini Theatre. Conceived and edited by Andrea Tomasetig, it is dedicated to the intense intellectual and human partnership between the poet Alda Merini and the typographer-poet-artist-publisher Alberto Casiraghy ​​from Brianza, a friendship that produced the surprising number of 1.189 volumes, of which over a hundred are on display. Great testimony therefore remains of the bond between the two artists in those little books published in a few precious copies, between 15 and 33 each, included in the Pulcinoeditore catalogue, to which they both contributed by producing on average more than one a week, Merini writing aphorisms or short poems, Casiraghy ​​printing and often specially creating a graphic work. 

From January 1992, the date of the first booklet created together, until Merini's death, an all-round friendship emerges, worthy of being told on the occasion of an anniversary that promises to be full of celebrations throughout Italy and in particular in Milan, the his city.

The vast source material, examined in its entirety for the first time, was selected and integrated with documents, photographs and memorabilia made available by Casiraghy ​​himself, to create an exhibition significant in size and intense in content. The exhibition is therefore developed in six sections: Poems, Aphorisms, Alda and Alberto, The world of Alda, Artist friends, Memeli, which reveal the importance of Merini's literary production poured into the Pulcinoeditore editions, as well as that of the empathetic publisher who was able to understand and support it, as well as supporting it with graphic solutions of great creativity and an editorial production that has no equal in breadth in the entire national literary history.

With this exhibition, the Pulcinoeditore editions return for the second time to the Boschi Di Stefano House Museum, presenting a new theme, waiting to find their public location. 
The entire Archive includes over 10 thousand publications, with hundreds of authors and artists involved, published by the extraordinary "book artist" Alberto Casiraghy, deeply linked to the city of Milan and at the same time a very high symbol also for the rest of Italy which loves books, culture and typography.

The original installation, curated by Cristiana Vannini, in the rooms of the picture gallery on the second floor, sees the booklets filling the shelves in no particular order, linked together by a thin web of elastic threads, a sort of conceptual cage from which strength emerges of the poetic and artistic freedom of Alda and Alberto.
The exhibition is also enriched with various collateral initiatives during the month of October, including the presentation of the catalog of the Merini-Casiraghy ​​editions by the bibliophile Giorgio Matticchio, published in a limited edition by Simone Bandirali, and the round table organized by Andrea Tomasetig in collaboration with De Cecco, in which projects on food and culture are illustrated.

On 1 October, the day of the inauguration of the exhibition at Casa Boschi, the nearby Teatro Elfo Puccini dedicates an evening to Merini and Casiraghy ​​with interventions by the publisher himself, by Ambrogio Borsani (editor of the poet's most accurate anthology for Mondadori), by Andrea Tomasetig (curator of the exhibition) and Maria Fratelli, director of Casa Museo Boschi Di Stefano, as well as a final reading by the actress and writer Patrizia Zappa Mulas.
Free entry, in collaboration with the TCI

Opening hours Tuesday-Sunday 10am-18pm; Monday closed

Tel. info. +39 02 88463736 - c.casaboschi@comune.milano.it