The Museo civico Duilio Cambellotti in Latina stands on piazza San Marco, in the former Opera Nazionale Balilla building, and is devoted to the Roman artist, a leading figure of Italian Liberty style, and to his ties with the Pontine territory.
What to see
The museum, born on 14 October 2005, gathers part of the artist's many works: sculptures, drawings, tempera paintings, woodcuts, ceramics, books, medals, posters and documents that testify to his activity in Latina and the Agro Pontino, about half a century of versatile work. Among the works with a direct reference to Pontine places are the Fonte della Palude, a bronze of 1912 and 1984, the Disegni Pontini in charcoal and pencil from the early decades of the 20th century, the woodcut Il Fuoco Sacro, the stained-glass cartoons and the sculptures Il Buttero, Le Vacche aratrici, of 1924, and Vomere. The thematic rooms hold the sketches for the war memorials of Priverno, Terracina and Borgo Hermada, which show how Cambellotti understood sculpture in an architectural and sometimes theatrical key.
The building was designed in 1932 by Oriolo Frezzotti; for many years it was the gymnasium of almost all the city's schools, then had various uses, until it returned to the centre of Latina as a museum: the aim is that everyone can retrace and recognise the origins of the city they live in, and the collection documents the efforts made to build Littoria, the city's original name. In 1984 the Comune had celebrated the relationship between Cambellotti and the Pontine territory with the exhibition «Duilio Cambellotti sculture e l'Agro Pontino», and about ten years later the Galleria civica d'arte moderna e contemporanea had set up a section with works that came through donations from the heirs and purchases by the Comune. The route is arranged as a large central hall and smaller rooms laid out in a semicircle, with an upper gallery that lets you see the volumes below from above.
Visiting
The museum is on piazza San Marco, in the centre of Latina; hours, tickets and opening days should be checked with the museum before visiting. It also promotes university museology internships, conferences, book presentations and themed guided tours.
Our editors' tip
Look at the sculptures on the platform in the middle of the hall and then at the sketches in the thematic rooms: it is the most direct way to see how the same artist moved from ceramics and drawing to monumental sculpture.
