GIULIO ARISTIDE SARTORIO
Il poema della vita umana

16 May – 28 September 2025
Venice, Ca’ Pesaro – International Gallery of Modern Art
Second floor exhibition rooms

Curated by
Elisabetta Barisoni
Matteo Piccolo

MUVE Education activities for the exhibition

On the occasion of the exhibition Giulio Aristide Sartorio. Il Poema della vita umana, hosted at Ca’ Pesaro – International Gallery of Modern Art until 28 September 2025, MUVE Education has planned a guided itinerary aimed at adults and schools, as well as a multisensory tour for all.

Guided tour

Giulio Aristide Sartorio. Il Poema della vita umana
In the spring of 1906, at the invitation of the secretary general of the Biennale, Antonio Fradeletto, Giulio Aristide Sartorio agreed to realise the pictorial cycle called Il Poema della vita umana – ‘The Poem of Human Life’ – to be placed in the Central Hall of the 1907 International Exhibition.
In the four main scenes – Light, Darkness, Love and Death – which alternate with ten vertical canvases (depicting Grace and Art), the artist offers a dramatic vision of existence, from birth to death. Between the two extremes are the allegories of Darkness and the divergence between the figures of Eros and Himeros, good and evil love.
Installed for the inauguration of the 1907 exhibition, the fourteen scenes remained in situ for the following edition of the Biennale and then made their way to Ca’ Pesaro as a gift from King Victor Emmanuel III to the Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna di Venezia in 1909.
Thanks to the Italian and foreign works present at the Biennales in the same years, which later became part of the Ca’ Pesaro collections, and to the extensive documentation from various archives, the guided tour of the exhibition allows visitors to understand fully the meaning of Sartorio’s great cycle and the significance of this splendid page in twentieth-century Italian painting.
Target: adults, lower secondary schools (last year), upper secondary schools and universities
Duration: 1.5 hours
Languages: Italian, English, French and Spanish

How to participate

Educational activities can be booked online by clicking on the red “choose and book” button. 

Costs and terms of access

– FOR ADULTS
EUR 100 for groups of up to 25 people
The group must purchase reduced admission tickets to the museum (exhibition included) directly at the ticket office on the day of the tour.

– FOR SCHOOLS
EUR 100 for classes of up to 25 students + 2 teachers (and any support teachers)
The tour is recommended for lower secondary schools (last year), upper secondary schools and universities.
The cost of the activity includes admission to the museum (exhibition included) for all classes of all levels.
Free admission for accompanying teachers (max 2) and/or certified carers for disabled visitors.

Multisensory tour for all

The forms of the modern. Sculpture at Ca’ Pesaro
After an introduction to the palace, a masterpiece of Venetian Baroque by Baldassarre Longhena completed by Antonio Gaspari, including a tactile analysis of some architectural elements, the sensory journey continues on the first floor of the museum with an exploration of original sculptures by Medardo Rosso, Adolfo Wildt, Arturo Martini, Henry Moore and a relief reproduction of Marc Chagall’s painting Rabbi No. 2 or Rabbi of Vitebsk. The latter is accompanied by a QR code that activates an audio-visual description in Italian and English, with subtitles and Italian and International Sign Language interpretation.
From 16 May to 28 September 2025, the experience is enriched even further by the sculptures of Max Klinger, Georges Minne, Raffaello Romanelli and Emilio Marsili, which will be on display in the Giulio Aristide Sartorio. Il Poema della vita umana exhibition on the second floor of Ca’ Pesaro.
Duration: 2 hours
Languages: Italian

The multi-sensory tour, conducted by in-house curators, is offered free of charge to visitors with specific needs.
For more information: education@fmcvenezia.it or call +39 0412700370.

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INFORMATION AND CONTACTS

MUVE Education
T +39 041 2700370
education@fmcvenezia.it