Torricelli

Raffaello Torricelli (1910). A lawyer, he was also the president of the Centro Moda di Firenze from 1962 until 1965 and of the Chamber of Tourism (Azienda di Turismo) from 1961 till 1970. In that capacity, he supported the fruitless struggles of Giovanni Battista Giorgini to endow Florence with a Palazzo della Moda (Palace of Fashion) and an urbanistic complex, at the Cascine, that would include much needed fair and congress structures as well as a hotel, conference rooms, a movie theater, workshops of the craftspeople of the sector, a costume museum, and an archives. With a surprisingly farsighted approach, Torricelli always considered fashion to be a fundamental component of contemporary culture. In the decade that he spent at the helm of the Azienda di Turismo, he was the chief promotor of the construction of the Palazzo dei Congressi, he set up the Mostre Mercato d’Arte Contemporanea at Palazzo Strozzi and the Biennali d’Architettura which involved the participation of Alvar Aalto and Frank Lloyd Wright. In 1983, he founded, and remained president for 10 years, the Associazione Amici della Galleria del Costume di Palazzo Pitti, which was absolutely decisive in the development of that museum.