"Buon viaggio a te e adoperati efficacemente pel trionfo dell'Esposizione di Venezia!" Bartolomeo Bezzi e l'arte tedesca alla Biennale del 1899

This paper is a revised version of the second chapter of my PhD dissertation, discussed in 2014 at the University of Udine. The documentary support is provided by largely unpublished correspondence between Bartolomeo Bezzi, the "commissario speciale per l'invito alle opere di Germania e Austria" for the 1899 edition of the Biennale, and the general secretary of the Biennale Antonio Fradeletto, that has been traced by the author in the Historical Archives of Contemporary Art in Venice. This overview on the epistolary sheds new light on Bezzi's personal contribution and on the choices that he made during his trip to Germany, despite the absence of further evidence in the 1899 exhibition. Furthermore, it accurately documents the participation of the Austro-German secessionist artists who exercised a decisive influence on the cultural policy of the first Biennali, until then mostly dominated by instances of obscurantism and regression.