In Naples, the final exhibition of the 19th edition of Restituzioni

The Gallerie d’Italia in Naples is staging the concluding exhibition of the 19^th edition of Restituzioni, the biennial programme aimed at safeguarding and enhancing the national artistic heritage, which Intesa Sanpaolo has been running for more than thirty years in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture: there are 200 works in the exhibition that cover a chronological period of 26 centuries, from antiquity to modern times, with the involvement of 80 restoration laboratories and 54 preservation bodies.

Among the art heritage on display, “restored to the public” thanks to the programme Restituzioni, the treasure of Napoleon, works by Antonello da Messina, Giovanni Bellini, Cima da Conegliano, il Bronzino, Giulio Romano, Umberto Boccioni and Pelliza da Volpedo. The programme has also enabled the restoration of the monumental painting on canvas by Veronese, The Supper of Saint Gregory the Great (Cena di san Gregorio Magno), which is preserved in Vicenza’s Basilica di Monte Berico, from which it cannot be moved for preservation reasons but which is included in the exhibition by means of a number of videos that retrace the salient phases of its restoration.

The exhibition is the inaugural event of the new Gallerie d'Italia site in Via Toledo, Naples, the scientific curation of which is by Carlo Bertelli, Giorgio Bonsanti and Carla Di Francesco.

Intesa Sanpaolo has collaborated on Restituzioni for 33 years with ministerial bodies (Superintendencies, Regional Offices of Museums and autonomous Museums) in order to identify works belonging to public, private or ecclesiastical museums, archaeological sites and churches throughout Italy in need of restoration, supporting the interventions. The choice of the works followed a single criterion: listening to the needs of the territories in order to enhance their identity through interventions that meet the actual requirements and urgency of the restoration, recovering assets that are representative of the range of Italian historical-artistic heritage, both in chronological terms and in terms of materials and techniques.