History
THE HISTORY AND SITE
The National Museum of the Palazzo di Venezia is housed in the grand building once residence of the Venetian pope Paul II Barbo (1464-1471), an art lover and collector and "moral" initiator of the future development of this museum. When he became pope in 1464, Pietro Barbo decided to convert the pre-existent modest house into an imposing palace and added in 1470 the large tower and the beautiful courtyard. Surviving to many events and, first of all, to the ravages of several wars, this building was selected in 1929 by Benito Mussolini as site of the Head of the Cabinet; the museum (established in 1921) was closed to the public and the visits allowed only by permission of the Police. Thanks to legacies and several public and private donations, the Museum of the Palazzo di Venezia has acquired year after year its status as an important museum of decorative arts.
THE COLLECTIONS
The earlier core (gathered between 1919 and 1922 ca) consists of works coming from Castel Sant'Angelo, the National Gallery of Antique Art and from the collection of the dispersed Roman College Museum, founded in the 17th century by the Jesuit father Atanasio Kircher. The items were mostly medieval and Renaissance works, bearing evidence of particular fields of decorative arts: small bronze figures, enemels, marble works, pottery, mostly from Italian workshops. Between 1924 and 1926 there were added complete pottery sets, church furniture and vestments, silver- and gold works, previously belonging to the religious orders dissolved at the end of the 19th century or to manastic communities scattered out over Latium or to buildings ruined during the earthquake in Marsica (1915). Among the legacies granted between 1915 and 1940, of special note are the extremely valuable Wurtz Collection (1933, which includes a vast selection of pottery from Savona-, Montelupo-, Deruta- and Castelli workshops, ranging from the 16th- to the 17th century); the Ruffo Collection (prints, paintings and pieces of furniture from the early 18th- to the second half of the 19th century); the Venetian Renaissance bronze works and figures coming from the Barsanti Collection; the outstanding collection of the 16th-century terracotta models once belonging to the opera singer Evan Gorga (1865-1957). In 1940 the Museum acquired another important collection of panel paintings, mostly dating to the 14th century, from Tuscany and Northern-Central Italy (with some 15th- and 16th-century pieces) gathered by Giulio Sterbini during the last three decades of the 19th century until his death in 1911. At last but not least the large textile section which includes remarkable tapestries (such as the series of Putti from the Barberini workshop), carpets, Coptic textiles, modern ecclesiastical and secular textiles. laces, head-dresses of different style and provenance. The museum also houses cassoni and other pieces of furniture, wrought iron works alongside a noteworthy collection of antique arms and armours.
|
