In 1984 the Municipality of Latina decided to celebrate the deep relationship that existed between Duilio Cambellotti and the Pontine territory with the exhibition Duilio Cambellotti Sculptor and the Agro Pontino, set up in the building of the former Opera Balilla, a building in the city of foundation designed by the architect Oriolo Frezzotti in 1932. That constant exhibition was followed, about ten years later, by the installation at the Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Latina of a section specifically dedicated to some works by the Roman artist, which arrived in the capital thanks to donations from the Cambellotti heirs and purchases made by the Municipal Administration of Latina.
Starting from that important nucleus – embellished over the years by other important acquisitions – the Museo Civico Duilio Cambellotti of Latina was founded in 2005, with its headquarters (not by chance) in the building of the former Opera Balilla.
There are sculptures, drawings, temperas, woodcuts, ceramics, books, medals, posters and documents, which document almost half a century of the Roman artist’s activity in the Pontine territory.
In the large central hall there are the original preparatory cartoons for La Redenzione dell’Agro (1934), the pictorial cycle made in tempera on eternit panels that decorates the Palazzo del Governo in Latina, together with the sketches in tempera on paper and those in pencil and ink on glossy paper, which tell in an almost exhaustive way the creative process of the great mural cycle.
