The roots

The issues addressed by Borgonzoni along his long artistic path are deeply rooted in his origins in Medicina:

"I was born in Medicina, in Cussini street, in a small eighteenth century house. The headquarters of the farm labourers and rice weeders’ organization was located across the street, in a house dating back to the same period, in a small office on the first floor. The ancient inn ”Osteria del Sole” was located on the ground floor. I could hear the workers’ songs from the windows of my house: rhythmic words and meanings expressed their hopes for a better future; their songs were a way to be together, to feel close with one another. Many red flags with the symbols of farm work tools were waving at the top of the flagstaffs. Those images appealed to me and will always remain engraved deep in my heart and in my eyes: a flashback in time that is the very root of my memory. [...] At the age of sixteen, I left Medicina to move to Bologna. Later I joined the resistance and I collaborated with Orlando Argentesi from Medicina and with Giovanni Bottonelli from Bologna. As an artist I have made many different experiences. In 1948 I painted the hall in the Workers' Trade Union seat in Medicina and in 1950 in Vignola. I made a large 100 sq.m. wall painting in Antonio Gramsci’s house [...] My painting was characterized by the rural world themes and in times of crisis and rethinking I made several trips to Paris and London in 1960 and 1961. On my way back I started an important cycle linked to the Second Vatican Council, which occupied all of my research until 1980.”

(A. Borgonzoni, Reflections leading to the roots of my origins in Medicina, in N.S.Onofri et.al., by Francesco Zanardi. A socialist at the Palazzo d' Accursio, Bologna, Publisher [untitled] , Without name edition 1992, p. 7)