“Nella natura stessa della pietra, del legno, del ferro” Armando Pizzinato, Carlo Scarpa, and Valeriano Pastor and their work for the Council Chamber of the Province of Parma

Abstract

This paper highlights the events that inspired Carlo Scarpa to design the spatial arrangement and furnishings of the Council Chamber of the Province of Parma between 1953 and 1956. Armando Pizzinato, who taught style and mural painting at the P. Toschi Art Institute in Parma, played a fundamental role in obtaining the assignment. Pizzinato was entrusted with the task of frescoing the walls of the Council Chamber itself. Unpublished documents can be analysed to determine when the work was conceived and how it was implemented, precisely outlining the chronological phases of the project and identifying the Venice and Parma artisans. The archival papers reveal the complex conservation events of the work, the protection of which Pizzinato was constantly committed. Valeriano Pastor, a former collaborator of Scarpa from 1954 to 1956, would begin the restoration process of the Council Chamber.