The Ranieri di Sorbello Foundation ETS currently is the custodian of an important core of art collections, the result of centuries of acquisitions by the Marquises Ranieri Bourbon di Sorbello. This heritage includes paintings, engravings, porcelain, and textiles, gathered over time through inheritance and marital alliances.
Over the course of three centuries, from the 17th to the 19th, the collection was enriched by contributions from various members of the family, whose level of education, artistic sensibility, and socio-political vision left a distinctive mark. Although documentary evidence regarding the Bourbon di Sorbello collections in the 17th century is limited, a series of inventories has made it possible to at least partially reconstruct their history. These documents reveal the family’s strong ties to both Florence and the Savoy court in Turin, and demonstrate the existence of cultured and refined collectors such as Uguccione III (1737–1816), Diomede (1743–1811), and Ugolino (1745–1809).
The legacy of their refined Enlightenment taste is still evident today in the heritage they assembled and passed down to future generations of the Sorbello family.
In the first half of the 19th century, an important marital alliance led to a significant enrichment of the family’s art collections. On November 13, 1835, the marriage contract was signed between Carlo Emanuele II Bourbon di Sorbello (1800–1862) and Ginevra Ramirez di Montalvo (1814–1874). Thanks to the dowry of Ginevra – a Florentine noblewoman from a distinguished family of Spanish origins – the collections expanded by including highly valuable works, inherited from her paternal uncle, Antonio Ramirez di Montalvo (1766–1856), director of the Royal Gallery of Statues (now the Palatine Gallery) in Florence.
An additional contribution to the enrichment of the collections came from Marquis Lodovico VI (1749–1821), a member of the Academy of Fine Arts of Perugia from 1810, where he met the Roman painter Carlo Labruzzi (director of the same institution from 1810 to 1813). Marquis Tancredi Bourbon di Sorbello (1803–1884) was also an art enthusiast and collector; he was appointed honorary academician of the Academy of Fine Arts of Perugia in 1839 and became its vice president in 1845.
Today, a selection of the most valuable pieces of the Sorbello collections is permanently displayed at the House Museum of Palazzo Sorbello. In addition, temporary exhibitions allow visitors to explore and delve into specific segments of the collections.
