The Fondazione Cologni dei Mestieri d’Arte would like to thank all those who attended “Lo Spettacolo della Bellezza. La vera storia della Gran Saliera di Benvenuto Cellini”. We celebrated Adele and Franco Cologni's 90th birthday with an ad hoc production by the Compagnia Marionettistica Carlo Colla & Figli, with a surprise ending: the marionette ‘Franco Cologni’ recounting the evolution of the art profession up to the present day.
Three days (6, 7 and 8 December) of artful beauty for friends and the Milanese public, and not only, at the Triennale Teatro dell'Arte: photographer Luca Rotondo's shots captured the emotion of the guests and revealed the behind-the-scenes of this fascinating enchanted world. The story retraced the creation of Benvenuto Cellini's famous Saliera, a table monument and undisputed masterpiece of goldsmithing and applied art, an icon of Italian know-how and genius, which inspired the logo of Fondazione Cologni.
It was moving and exhilarating to celebrate these precious patrons in this way, sharing what we have always believed in: that there is something, and there will still be in the future, something that women and men will know how to do better than any machine: to create, to hope, to love.
The Compagnia Marionettistica Carlo Colla & Figli, Milan's pride and joy, boasts almost three hundred years of activity and is one of the world's oldest and most famous ensembles in figure theatre. The script is freely adapted, by Franco Citterio, from the text by Claudio Castellacci and Patrizia Sanvitale, ‘Saliere, pepiere, pifferi e mecenati. La storia vera della Gran Saliera di Benvenuto Cellini', in Lo Spettacolo della Bellezza, Marsilio Editori, Venice, 2020, edited by Fondazione Cologni dei Mestieri d'Arte.
