The Association of Friends of the Foundation Ugo Da Como
Founded in 1997 by a group of admirers of the patrimony of the Foundation Ugo Da Como, the Friends of the Foundation Ugo Da Como gave as targets the promotion and the dissemination of the knowledge of what was preserved in the House of the Venetian Podestà and in the Visconti Fortress of Lonato.
Among the members of the Association highlighted a group of volunteers that pragmatically supported the Foundation by helping to open to the public the spaces of the Museum established by the Senator Da Como.
The enthusiasm of the initial group caused a constant membership of the Association by people who wanted to support with their annual membership fee the organization of cultural events, debates, theatre performances, free concerts, book presentations and, later, also didactic activities addressed to schoolchildren, focused on the knowledge of the museum and the valuable texts of the library of Da Como.
The vastness of the exhibits and the ongoing studies about the acquisitions of what Da Como bought for the furniture of the house of the Podestà (paintings, furniture, glass, ceramics, books ...) leading the guides to feel the need to continuous updating courses, that the group of volunteers regularly attend under the leadership of the curator Stefano Lusardi and the librarian Roberta Valbusa.
Besides the main task of guide, there are also organised cultural initiatives addressed to the citizenship about aspects of the museum, of the territory of Lonato, of the Lake Garda or the Province, in addition to the organisation of conferences, concerts and moments of study.
Often, the Association also organizes cultural excursions dedicated to the knowledge of the environmental and artistic local heritage.
The Association stands out also for its publications: every year it publishes a number of "I Quaderni della Fondazione Ugo Da Como". This publication is useful as bulletin of the Association because it describes the activities carried out in the year, highlights the decisions taken by the General Assembly, and presents the list of the members.
Thanks to the recent acquisitions of documentary material, the publication also contains an important update section dedicated to the new studies and researches about rooms, objects, texts, paintings of the House Museum of Lonato and a section dedicated to the broadening knowledge of the areas in which the brescian Senator lived, with studies about the life of the province of Brescia at the time of Ugo Da Como.
In the recent years the annual publication is accompanied by a monograph: it was the case of the single issue about Andrea Celesti, the text of "Vasi da farmacia e rimedij naturali", one about "I Gonzaga a Lonato," or about "Tagliaferri" and even about "Ugo Da Como" and "Vittorio Barzoni".
Another important initiative realised by the Association was the establishment in 2001 of the Centro di Documentazione Lonatese: it aim to collect everything connected to Lonato and its territory, about historical, artistic, cultural, environmental and memorial argument. All this material, ordered, described and catalogued on computer media, is available to those who, for study or research, has the desire to increase the knowledge about the past or the current events of the city.
FONDAZIONE UGO DA COMO
