An Olivetti Cultural Product for Art and Architecture. The Critofilms of Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti

Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti was a historian, art critic and politician. Ragghianti promoted art (even the city is read as a work of art) among a vast public, also through the pages of a magazine called «seleArte», funded by Olivetti. Ragghianti experimented with different languages in his professional life and cinema is among them. From 1954 to 1964, financially aided by Adriano Olivetti, Ragghianti shooted nineteen critofilms; he invented this formula in order to define «the art criticism made with cinema». Critofilms were the first example of "cinema magazine" on art in Italy and focused on various themes: painting, sculpture, architecture and urban planning. Every aspects of the critofilms was controlled by Ragghianti: he wrote the subject, the script, he contributed to the editing and chose the music. This essay will focus on the relationship between Ragghianti and Adriano Olivetti. It will present and discuss previously unpublished materials kept in the archive of the Fondazione Ragghianti in Lucca, in particular the letters between Ragghianti and the producer Alberto Mortara, who mediated between Ragghianti and Olivetti. All critofilms are filmed in color, in cinemascope, and with expensive aerial views from the airplane and the helicopter. Thanks to these innovative but expensive techniques Ragghianti investigated the historical heritage of some small Tuscan cities, as for instance Lucca. The critofilms represented for Adriano Olivetti a remarkable instrument for the communication of art and they represent a strategic asset in the wide range of cultural activities promoted by his Company. Through unpublished documents, this paper reaffirms the importance of critofilm not only as documents of a unique way of disseminating art, but also as a rare example of a product developed from a strong and open dialogue between all the actors involved: the client (Olivetti), a professional mediator (Mortara) and a scholar with a creative attitude (Ragghianti).