San Lorenzo School

The artists initially gathered around the La Stanza experience, an artist-run exhibition space active in Rome from 1976 to 1978. It was literally a single room inside a courtyard in Via Cavour 295. Giuseppe Gallo and Bruno Ceccobelli exhibited there in 1977, in 1978 also with Pizzi Cannella.

In 1984, through the Ateliers exhibition curated by Achille Bonito Oliva, the Pastificio opened the artist ateliers to the public for the first time; this action was revolutionary because it was not the art that travelled to the public but the individual who entered the atelier, a place of ultimate artistic creation.

Gallery owners took an interest in them: first Fabio Sargentini, and then Gian Enzo Sperone, pushed the group beyond national borders, with the constant support of Achille Bonito Oliva himself.

Although these artists chose discreet careers focused on the essentiality of artistic discourse, they generated significant interest, also at an international level.

Their experience, now historical, was the subject of a major exhibition presented in 2009 at the MART, Museum of Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto entitled Italia Contemporanea Officina San Lorenzo.

In 2004, the Fondazione Pastificio Cerere was established in the same former pasta factory, to continue to promote and disseminate contemporary art, perpetuating the mission of the original Scuola di San Lorenzo.