RICCI, CORRADO. — Archaeologist and art critic, born in Ravenna on 18 April 1858, died in Rome on 5 June 1934.
A student at the University of Bologna (where he received his law degree on 5 July 1882), he began his work as a scholar and archaeologist with the exploration of the crypt of the Ravennate basilica of S. Pietro Maggiore, or S. Francesco, which he conducted in 1877 together with Edoardo Gardella. The first edition of his guide to Ravenna and its environs (issued in installments from 1877 to 1888) is a youthful work, but in many respects still extremely useful and unsurpassed
RICCI, CORRADO - Portrait.
history of art. In 1923 he was appointed senator of the Kingdom. His activity extended to the principal Italian picture galleries of Parma, Modena, Breve, which he reorganized in 1903, the Florentine Galleries, and the Capitoline. His name is also linked to the arrangement of the Imperial Fora and the great avenues that, in Rome, lead to the Colosseum. But it was in monumental Ravenna that he always gave the best of his activity; he restored and renovated its basilicas and other monumental buildings, work that he courageously began as early as November 1897, as superintendent of monuments. Of this spirit of research and devoted study, there remains today what may be regarded as his principal work: the Tavole storiche dei muscici di Ravenna.
He wished his remains to rest in the cemetery of his native city and that all his books, the correspondence of approximately 80,000 letters on artistic, historical, or literary subjects, and his cards should be preserved in the Biblioteca Classense.