A silent dialogue links Turin and Milan, thanks to two exhibitions crowning the arrival of the beautiful season.

In Turin, Palazzo Madama hosts Visitate l'Italia! Tourism promotion and advertising 1900-1950, an unprecedented itinerary dedicated to the history of Italian tourism promotion, from the end of the 19th century to the first years of reconstruction after the Second World War, and it does so through two hundred posters, hundreds of guides and illustrated leaflets.

The exhibition traces the evolution of the tourism poster through the great protagonists of Italian illustration at the beginning of the 20th century, such as Leopoldo Metlicovitz and Marcello Dudovich, Ettore Ximenes, Galileo Chini, up to the birth in 1919 of ENIT, the National Board for the Increase in Tourism Industries, with which commissions began to follow different rules. From this moment on, in fact, they began to favour the assignment of multi-subject promotional campaigns to one and the same person, marking a progressive impoverishment of poster art.

The exhibition itinerary, set up in the Senate Hall, is divided into five sections, starting from the Alps and following the Apennine ridge, we will arrive at the wonder of our islands and then go back to the Italy of thermal waters, the sea and beaches, entertainment and sport, health and the Belle Époque, discovering what was to become the myth of post-war Italy.

Thus was born the manifesto that became a symbol of our country's imagination, giving rise to iconic works capable over time of indelibly linking the memories of travellers from all over the world. As emphasised at the press conference, it is a parable that starts from the tradition of the Grand Tour and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe with the two volumes of the Italian Journey.

All the way to the beginning of the 20th century, when tourism began to play an important role in the Italian economy and decreed the creation of the Ente Nazionale per l'incremento delle industrie turistiche (National Board for the Development of Tourism Industries), strongly supported by the Italian Touring Club for the promotion, management and coordination of tourism and hotel business dependent on the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Labour. An organisation capable of bringing new development to the promotion of tourism in Italy and abroad, significantly expanding the reflection on the so-called Italian tourist attractions, evoking the most fascinating destinations through refined graphics.

The exhibition is accompanied by a video that recounts the transformations of Italy over the thirty years separating the first and last images. Curated by Jacopo Bulgarini d'Elci, it makes use of period video- documentary sources from the Archivio Storico Luce and is well ‘matched’ to the catalogue published by Dario Cimorelli Editore with essays by the curators and Anna Villari.

At the same time, the exhibition Art deco, the triumph of modernity opened in the halls of the Palazzo Reale in Milan in the centenary year of one of the most famous exhibition events of the 20th century: the Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes, which opened in Paris in 1925.

Although the subject matter has been exhibited in Italy several times in recent years, Milan manages to surprise by restoring to the visitor an international aesthetic taste, which spread rapidly in Europe after the First World War and was able to decree the success of Italian decorative arts, in fact laying the foundations of Made in Italy.

‘The exhibition represents a moment of extraordinary cultural insight, in which art, society and history are intertwined. Through a rich and articulated exhibition itinerary, not only is the aesthetic magnificence of an era that redefined the very concept of modernity restored to the public, but also its symbolic value, as a perfect synthesis of traditional craftsmanship and technological innovation,’ said Culture Councillor Tommaso Sacchi. In a period marked by fragility and contradictions, Art Deco emerged as the expression of a universal quest for harmony and refinement, capable of transcending geographical boundaries and artistic disciplines. This project, which Palazzo Reale proudly hosts, invites us to reflect on the power of art as a common language and on the ability of the past to dialogue with the present, offering us new keys to understanding our cultural identity’.

The loans from all over the world are important, especially the precious manufactures that open a window on that period, evoking places and ways of life, fashion, architecture, technological progress and design. Approximately 250 works are on display, for what is the kaleidoscope of an entire era: paintings, decorative sculptures, preparatory drawings, textiles through to furnishings, haute couture dresses, accessories, fine jewellery, as well as stained glass windows and mosaics that recall hotel furnishings and, the final jewel, the exhibition project ‘The Royal Pavilion at Milan's Central Station. An Art Deco masterpiece' which, through a wide selection of photographs, documents, drawings and furnishings preserved in the Archives of the Fondazione FS Italiane, the Archives of Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (Milan) and the Civic Photographic Archive of the Municipality of Milan, tells the story of the Royal Pavilion in Milan's Central Station and documents how Art Deco can also be found in Italian railway architecture. The Pavilion will soon be the starting point for a series of guided tours in the city organised by 24 ORE Cultura, which also curates the accompanying rich catalogue.