Two years of work, two ‘institutions’ (for their respective fields) for a success story (and project), marked by two phases: the Emblème Digital Caveau® for the Leonardo Bistolfi Collection. It is in fact since 2022 that the Emblème platform, a company specialised in cataloguing, management and valorisation of collections and heritage of memory founded by Giulia Tosetti, has been working side by side with the Museum of Casale Monferrato to create a digital catalogue of Bistolfi’s entire collection. It consists of around 1,400 works including plaster casts, sketches, paintings, drawings, notebooks and archive photographs, plus some objects and memorabilia that belonged to the artist. After months of work, all the objects in the collection have been catalogued on the digital platform (the Emblème Digital Caveau®, in fact) in cards with technical information, bibliographical research, exhibition history, locations and additional documentary apparatus. Seeing is believing.
But that’s not all. A professional photographic campaign was also organised and coordinated for sculptures, coins, notebooks and a selection of documents and historical photographs, published in the monograph ‘Leonardo Bistolfi. Unpublished paths from the Gipsoteca of Casale Monferrato’. edited by Sandra Berresford and published by Allemandi in 2024 as part of the project. Within each file, reports and iconographic material on the restorations carried out have been implemented, particularly for the body of drawings from the Martelli Bistolfi 2021 / 2023 donation. The platform, of which a specially created free-access site ( https://museo.comune.casale-monferrato.al.it/ ) is also visible, has been organised according to exploration filters that indicate the different reading keys designed to restore the great variety of mediums and to retrace, through the links between drawings, sketches, plaster casts and monuments, all the phases of the creation process (from the initial idea to the final work).
Six main paths have been identified linked to the reconstruction of as many of Bistolfi’s fundamental works
1. The façade of the National Opera House in Mexico
2. The Hierschel de Minerbi Chapel
3. The Giovanni Segantini Monument in St. Moritz
4. The Giuseppe Garibaldi Monument in Sanremo
5. The Monument to Giosuè Carducci
6. The Brayda Cross
All the routes are connected to the valorisation of the works: the first five have been included as a focus in the 2024 monograph, while the Brayda Cross will be the subject of an exhibition in 2023, in collaboration with Banca Patrimoni Sella.
The link with the management of exhibitions, loans and restorations is always present thanks to special cards and a continuous monitoring of the movements and updates of the works in the collection. The exploration filters are also designed to give prominence to the other artists in the collection, often friends and authors of portraits and caricatures of Bistolf himself, and to the numerous personalities touched by his production. Among these are the historical figures to whom the sculptor dedicated memorials, and those with whom he came into contact: patrons, famous interlocutors (e.g. Cesare Lombroso, Giovanni Pascoli, Arturo Toscanini), or members of his family (often depicted in portraits and contemporary photographs), who represent an ‘intimate’ counterbalance to the artist’s public life.
The work confluted within the platform, which will be continually updated and implemented in tandem with the Museum’s scientific and popularisation activities, is made accessible to the community through a site, which can also be consulted from a mobile phone during the visit, on which the files and images are published, explorable by type, data, monuments, suggested itineraries, authors and personalities. Examples of recent restorations are also shared with the public, such as the case of the Washerwomen, which at the time of the 2021 donation was in a fragmentary state and was reassembled in 2024 also thanks to the comparison with historical photographs and the bronze specimen now kept in the CRAL collection in Alessandria.
The protagonist of the project – Emblème – https://embleme.eu/
Emblème, founded by Giulia Tosetti, takes care of the management, valorisation and systemisation of art collections and archives and all types of assets of passion, talent and memory. Culturally linked to the world of fiduciary and heritage management, Emblème acts with care and confidentiality with the aim of enhancing the tangible and intangible value of archives and collections, protecting the interests of their custodians. What characterises Emblème is its ability to interpret assets from a historical, narrative, generational and economic/financial point of view, which together contribute to defining the identity, the emblem, of those who own them. Each project is defined starting with a detailed analysis of the existing history and material. On the basis of what emerges, the operational management phase is structured, comprising all the activities of cataloguing, archiving, digitisation, conservation and storytelling.
The core team consists of project and collection managers, archivists, registrars, conservators, photographers and IT specialists in synergy with specialists from the various fields of collecting and storytellers for the reworking of stories of passion, talent and memory into identity paths. For each project, an ad hoc team is set up, led by a single contact person, who is able to work for and with the property manager. Thanks to integrated project and collection management skills, the latter is accompanied throughout the project development. The company has developed a utilisation and management platform, the Emblème Digital Caveau®, based on proprietary technology and protected by the highest levels of security, to guarantee the valorisation of the materials through a specialised filter system, relational maps and narrative paths.
