With great foresight, the director of the Castelvecchio Museum, Licisco Magagnato, bought 439 drawings for the restoration and new layout of the Verona museum (1958-1964 and 1968-1975) directly from Carlo Scarpa in 1975, collected by Angelo Rudella and Angelo Aldrighetti, associates of the museum management, with the aim of conserving them after the work was completed.
On the occasion of the Carlo Scarpa exhibition at Castelvecchio, curated by Licisco Magagnato in 1982, one of the earliest tributes to Scarpa after his death, the drawings were photographed and catalogued with what is still an exemplary method, thanks to the assistance of Arrigo Rudi, Scarpa’s first associate in the Castelvecchio restoration.
In 1990 a further 218 sheets relating to the completion of the restoration were found following a reordering of the archive. The collection now consists of 657 sheets, most of which were drawn by the architect himself.
The collection is further enriched by 149 drawings made by the Museum Management’s Technical Office, which worked with Scarpa on the site, by 85 elevations drawn up by Richard Murphy between 1986 and 1987 and donated to the museum in 2004, and 50 elevations made in 2006.
Over the years the drawings have been restored, studied, published and often shown at exhibitions in Italy and abroad.
The database is thus another important stage in a long project aimed at the conservation and appreciation of the architect’s work. This led to publication of the catalogue I disegni di Carlo Scarpa per Castelvecchio, by Alba Di Lieto, Marsilio Editori 2006, on the occasion of the centenary of Carlo Scarpa’s birth.