”Hanging above the fireplace, gazing at the guests in the reception room, Arturo Noci’s portrait of Lionello Perera delivered a sense of cordiality and sophistication: the artist had truly pictured the banker as a gentle and refined Italian patron, devoted to the art of portraiture.”
“Lionello Perera: An Italian Banker and Patron in New York” by Diego Mantoan (Vernon Press 2022)
An open access repository for Lionello Perera
The present website is the online repository that offers open access to the full material legacy of Lionello Perera, the principal Italian American banker and patron of New York in the first half of the twentieth century. Thanks to the collaboration of the Perera Family Archive, Prof. Diego Mantoan (University of Palermo) together with Silvia Ballarin set up a digital collection of varied materials that are searchable both according to the nature of the items (main Menu) and by means of a wide array of thematic clusters (lateral Tags). This project aims at disseminating the extraordinary yet almost unknown biography of a founding father of the Italian American community of the East Coast.
You are welcome to navigate this online repository and discover the traces of an untold yet exceptional Italian American story. Thanks go to the Perera Family Archive, as well as to the museums and institutions that provided copyright to display the materials contained in this website.
PereraPapers 