The Cid/arti visive collection has grown in time thanks to the acquisition of historical and artistic archives which started out as personal libraries of critics and scholars, or as magazine publishers’ archives, or as institutional archives of public bodies and foundations.
Some of these concentrate on local material (Nicoletti and Santi, Galleria il Bisonte of Florence, Galleria Metastasio of Carlo Palli of Prato), others on national material (Migliorini); others are more international (Marchi, Politi, Vincitorio, Salone di Villa Romana, Galleria Continua of San Gimignano and Galleria Carini of Florence); others reflect the particular personality and interests of their respective donors (Bertini, Bortolotti, Crispolti, Mucci), or the different artistic directors and the history of the Centro Pecci (Barzel, Panicelli, Nitsch, Spoerri, Centro Pecci Historical Archive). Italian and foreign catalogues of public and private collections have enriched the document collection. These cover a timespan from the ‘50s up to today and testify to the exhibitions and publications of the national and international partners with whom the CID has established agreements for the exchange of documents. The monographs and essays on the various forms of contemporary expression and the precious serial collection document the development of the international debate on the state of the contemporary art, just as it happened. The first specialized periodicals were introduced thanks to the donation of the magazines from the Marchi and Politi Bequests.
Later, a group of experts added force to the collection by identifying, around the mid-1980s, the 100 most representative titles of the international art publication scene. Today the CID/arti visive conserves and keeps a record of over 330 specialized publications (including discontinued, suspended and still-existing titles).The collection is completed by the audiovisual material and other minor material. The former includes video-catalogues of exhibitions, documentary videos on artists and the art world. The latter includes invitations, programs, fliers, posters, press reviews, postcards, artists’ dossiers and gray literature (bibliographies, bulletins and serial publications of public bodies, museums and art galleries), with which it is possible to reconstruct the historical memory of many artistic events no trace of which would otherwise remain.
The art historian and critic Lara-Vinca Masini has indicated the CID/arti visive as the post-mortem deposit for her archive, which includes documents, letters, photographic and multimedia materials, monographs, catalogs, essays and brochures regarding art, architecture, design, theatre and cinema.
Ferruccio Marchi was the founder in 1968 of the art publishers Centro Di, based in Florence. He had a personal passion for art, and starting from 1965 he collected artist books, posters, exhibition catalogues and contemporary American, European and Italian art publications, which also include subjects such as photography, architecture and the theme of public and private collecting. A collection was thus formed which was mainly dedicated to the postwar years, particularly the ‘sixties and ‘seventies, with the innovative themes of those years such as Arte Povera, Land Art, Conceptual Art etc. The collection is completed by the publications of the Centro Di publishers and a series of posters for exhibitions held in those same years in Italy and abroad. In the Marchi Bequest section you can also find documents on the Italian and foreign 20th-century historical avant-garde movements, or on historic art events like the Venice Biennale, the Milan Triennale and Documenta of Kassel.
Artists' books
The CID/arti visive of the Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci has an important collection of artist books. Originally purchased as part of the Marchi and Politi Bequest, it has been added to over the years with new artists’ donations, and today numbers about 200 volumes including illustrated publications, books and exhibition catalogues, book-objects and book-works. These are divided into a historical group dedicated to ‘sixties and ‘seventies productions, and another group dedicated to contemporary production, including works by Marco Bagnoli, Enrico Baj, Enrico Castellani, Vittorio Corsini, Jean Dubuffet, Lucio Fontana, Hans Hollein, Franco Ionda, Jasper Johns, Tadashi Kawamata, Svetlana Kopystiansky, Sol LeWitt, Eugenio Miccini, Bruno Munari, Giulio Paolini, Paolo Parisi, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Mauro Staccioli and Stefano Arienti, and covering a timespan from 1968 up to the present day.
Francesco Vincitorio Archive
The Francesco Vincitorio documentary collection, donated to CID/arti visive in 1994, contains manuscripts (over 5000) mostly consisting of the critic’s correspondence with personalities from the art world, a photographic archive and the historic magazine NAC-Notiziario Arte Contemporanea (1968-1974), bound in five volumes.