Education

Maurizio Calvesi was born in Rome on 18 September 1927, the son of Arnaldo Calvesi, himself the son of the engineer and architect Alessandro, a native of Passo Corese (ancient Cures, where Tacitus records the existence of the Calvisi) and of Gabriella Fraschetti Tazzoli, daughter of Ida Tazzoli and great-granddaughter of don Enrico Tazzoli.

He is married to Augusta Monferini (daughter of the well-known professor of philosophy Enzo Monferini) who as an employee of the Fine Arts administration was director of Rome’s Galleria Spada and subsequently superintendent at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna; she is currently editor-in-chief of the journal “Storia dell’Arte” and owner of the publishing house Cam.

C. has two daughters from a previous marriage, Gabriella and Flavia; the latter has made him a great-grandfather. His distant relation of the same name is the much younger renowned director of photography working in the film industry.

From his childhood C. was a frequent visitor to Giacomo Balla’s Rome studio, on the upper floor of his house in Via Oslavia 39 b, Rome; in 1934 Balla and his daughter Elica collaborated on a pastel portrait of C. aged seven. In 1941, encouraged by his discussions with Balla, he contacted F.T. Marinetti and became a member of the “Aeroporti Sant’Elia” group. Six of the “futurist” poems he wrote as an adolescent with Sergio Piccioni are now held by the Futurism archive at Yale University. (He has returned to poetry only recently with Tot epigrammi di nero, 2011, published by L’Obliquo). F.T. Marinetti dedicated a number of publications to him. This marked the beginning of his interest in Futurism; an interest which was purely that of a historian and critic of the movement.

In 1949 he obtained his first-class degree from the Faculty of Humanities at Rome’s “La Sapienza” University with an undergraduate thesis on “Simone Peterzano” assigned by Lionello Venturi, thus marking the start of his studies on Caravaggio. (1).

C. also frequented G.C. Argan, his second mentor. In Bologna, where he worked with Cesare Gnudi (see below), he became friendly with Francesco Arcangeli. He studied the works of Eugenio Garin in depth and later exchanged letters with him (2). Garin reviewed two of C.’s books. (3).