Lorenzo Mingardi - Leonardo Ricci and Leonardo Savioli: An Epistolary Novel (1943-1944)

Aug 25, 2026

Unpublished letters written by Leonardo Ricci to his friend Leonardo Savioli in 1943 and 1944 reconstruct the early careers of two Florentine architects. The correspondence reveals how Ricci’s architectural and pictorial themes developed from the 1950s onward, already emerging in the years preceding the post-war reconstruction projects in the city center. The study also shows that both men shared the ambition to design an “Ideal City” from 1943 and that wartime hopes, aspirations, and nightmares shaped later plans for an Integrated City.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages53

Reading Time2 h 14 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Letters and historical context (1943-1944)

Friendship and shared intellectual formation

Themes: Ideal City and Integrated City

World War II influences and artistic exchange

Lorenzo Mingardi Leonardo Ricci and Leonardo Savioli. An Epistolary Novel. 1943-1944 Leonardo Savioli, Ideal City, Florence, Painting, World War II /Abstract Through unpublished letters written by Leonardo Ricci to his friend Leonardo Savioli in 1943 and 1944, the paper aims to trace the early period of the two architects’ careers. The documents allow us to understand how the themes Ricci developed in both architecture and painting from the 1950s onward, and more fully in the 1960s, are present in his thinking as an artist and homme des lettres already from the years just prior to the projects for thereconstruction of the center of Florence. Moreover, the contribution highlights how Ricci also began, like Savioli, to design an“Ideal City” as early as 1943. His subsequent plans for new city pieces and his quest for the Integrated City are indebted to the feelings, aspirations and nightmares he experienced during the years of World War II. /Author Lorenzo Mingardi (University of Florence) [lorenzo.mingardi@unifi.it](lorenzo.mingardi@unifi.it)[ ](lorenzo.mingardi@unifi.it)[https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7798-0233](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7798-0233) Lorenzo Mingardi is a Research Fellow at the Department of Architecture, University of Florence. He has been a visiting fellow at PSLSorbonne in Paris (2021) and Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago (2022) . He is the author of the volumes Sono geloso di questa città. Giancarlo De Carlo e Urbino (Quodlibet, 2018) and Control’analfabetismo architettonico. Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti nel dibattito culturale degli anni Cinquanta (Fondazione Ragghianti, 2020) . He edited the volume Largest Architectural Firms (Edifir, 2021) . 4.0 [https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2611-0075/17859](https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2611-0075/17859 | ISSN 2611-0075)[ |](https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2611-0075/17859 | ISSN 2611-0075)[ ISSN 2611-0075](https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2611-0075/17859 | ISSN 2611-0075)[ ](https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2611-0075/17859 | ISSN 2611-0075)Copyright © 2022 Lorenzo Mingardi Despite significant differences in their personalities, Leonardo Ricci (1918-1994) and Leonardo Savioli (1917-1982) maintained a fraternal relationship throughout their lives; they cared deeply for each other. They met and recognized each other during their university studies as painters and architects. They both graduated under the guidance of the same advisor, Giovanni Michelucci – Savioli in 1940 and Ricci in 1942 – from a Faculty of Architecture in Florence that was quite distinct, in terms of teachings and cultural directions, from what they would later experience as professors after the war1 . The curriculum still focused on ‘architectural styles’, and instructors had students design projects using the compositional precepts proposed by Jean Nicolas Louis Durand, which were imported into the Italian academy. Just look at the drawings Ricci produced for his dissertation2 . Our account deals with the period in which the two “Leonardi” – as Bruno Zevi renamed them3 –, though physically distant – Savioli is in Florence and Ricci is enlisted in the army near Siena – were particularly linked by the hope of a better future than a present dominated by the tragedy of war. Numerous letters have come down to us – almost 40, written by Ricci to Savioli between January 1943 and November 19444 – that make up a unified corpus, because the themes touched upon, such as the hope of building a better world after the war, the love of painting, are always repeated in all the letters. The letters are unpublished and kept in the archives of Leonardo Savioli atthe Archivio di Stato di Firenze. Although they refer to a short time span, what Ricci writes (and what we guess Savioli responds to) provides us with indispensable elements for understanding not only how the relationship between the two arose, but also allows us to know the genesis of many topoi of their later work. We are therefore talki

FAQs

What primary source does the paper use to study Ricci and Savioli?

It uses unpublished letters written by Leonardo Ricci to Leonardo Savioli between 1943 and 1944, preserved in the archives of Leonardo Savioli.

How do the letters connect to the later work of Leonardo Ricci?

They trace how themes developed in architecture and painting from the 1950s onward were already present in Ricci’s thinking in the years before Florence’s post-war reconstruction projects.

What role does World War II play in the correspondence?

Wartime hopes, aspirations, and nightmares shape the authors’ plans, including ideas about designing an “Ideal City” and pursuing an Integrated City after the war.

Aug 25, 2026

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