\u201cThe Cini Collection is the most important collection put together\u00a0in Italy in the last fifty years.\u201d That is how, in 1984, the great\u00a0art historian Federico Zeri \u2013 a former advisor to Count Cini \u2013
\nbegan celebrating one of the greatest Italian collectors in the first\u00a0half of the 20th century. That same year, a permanent exhibition\u00a0of a group of the most significant items in his collection, donated\u00a0in 1981 by his daughter Yana Cini Alliata of Montereale, was\u00a0installed in what had been Vittorio Cini\u2019s Venetian home \u2013 the\u00a0Palazzo Cini. The great monument to his patronage remained,\u00a0however, Monselice Castle, where some sections of his collections,\u00a0such as the famous Armory, had been brilliantly laid out by the
\ningenious Nino Barbantini.
\nForty years after Vittorio Cini\u2019s death, the Foundation named after\u00a0his son is celebrating its founder by focusing on his intense activity\u00a0as one of the greatest and most enlightened collectors of historical\u00a0art works in the 20th century. The celebrations will include a study day, November 14, dedicated\u00a0to what Zeri described as the \u201clast Doge of Venice\u201d. The morning session will tackle\u00a0various aspects of the collector\u2019s personality, focusing on art historians and antique dealers\u00a0who were collaborator or consultant friends, such as Nino Barbantini, Federico Zeri and\u00a0Bernard Berenson. The afternoon papers, on the other hand, will illustrate Vittorio Cini\u2019s\u00a0affinities and differences with other contemporary collectors, such as Angelo Costa, Riccardo
\nGualino, Guido Cagnola and Aldo Crespi.<\/p>\n