Approximately eighty years after the liberation of Italy from Nazi-fascism, the exhibition places emphasis on the works by artists who experienced, suffered or opposed the policies of fascism, going through the dark and terrible days of war and racial laws, those of cultural persecution, and finally of the civil war. Artists who were loved and protected by Della Ragione, including Scipione, Mario Mafai, Antonietta Raphaël, Renato Guttuso, Renato Birolli and Emilio Vedova. Some of them, such as Mario Mafai, Antonietta Raphaël, Renato Guttuso, were hosted in the engineer's villa near Genoa to escape the persecution of the regime.
The works on display reveal the civil and political commitment that animated some artists in this particularly delicate phase of the history of the twentieth century and their silent ethical and existential troubles.