Giovanni Morelli e Gustavo Frizzoni. Dal "doppio catalogo" a "mon catalogue général".

[Autom. eng. transl.] The monograph describes the activity of Giovanni Morelli and Gustavo Frizzoni as authors of a cataloguing of works of art on a national scale requested by the Italian government in 1874. The work of the two connoisseurs continued until 1882, gradually changing from an institutional assignment to working materials for their own study activities. The catalogue, defined from the beginning as a "double catalogue", remained in manuscript form and arrived at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana after 1919. It is a substantial unpublished material that describes a cross-section of the heritage, especially pictorial, present in Italy in the aftermath of national unification. This volume precedes eleven other volumes dedicated to the critical edition of the individual fascicles divided by region, province and city. The first chapter reconstructs the entry of the manuscripts at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, after the death of Gustavo Frizzoni (1919). The second chapter describes in detail the events of the assignment entrusted to Morelli for the "double catalogue", understanding it in the institutional context of the time. The third chapter reconstructs the biographical events of the two connoisseurs from 1864 to 1874. The fourth chapter follows the inspections of the two cataloguers up to around 1882. The fifth chapter "Connoisseurs at the service of the institutions" opens to a series of historical-critical reflections prompted by the "double catalogue" that range from the history of conservation and restoration to the birth of the history of modern art. In the appendix, the "Note to the edition" edited by Laura Binda.