New Intesa Sanpaolo Museum in Turin

· Palazzo Turinetti in Piazza San Carlo will house the fourth museum, which joins existing venues in Milan, Naples and Vicenza

· The new museum will be dedicated mainly to photography

· A further step forward for the Bank’s Progetto Cultura, first banking Group in the world to own 4 museums that it places at the service of the public

Turin, 14 January 2020 – Today Intesa Sanpaolo presented its plans for a new Gallerie d’Italia museum in Turin - a fourth venue that joins the existing museums in Milan, Naples and Vicenza. The new and important cultural initiative will be housed in Palazzo Turinetti, the Group’s historic building and registered office. Dedicated mainly to photography, the museum will exhibit a selection of works from the Bank’s collections including the Publifoto Archive. This collection was recently acquired by Intesa Sanpaolo and is composed of around 7 million photographs of events, famous people and places taken between the early Thirties and the Nineties. In addition, there will also be temporary exhibitions by world-renowned photographers thanks to collaborative partnerships with Italian and foreign cultural institutions and key local events supported by the Bank. Intesa Sanpaolo is the only banking Group in the world to own 4 museums that it places at the service of the public with permanent exhibitions of collections and its own programmed original exhibitions

The Bank’s senior management presented the Intesa Sanpaolo Gallerie d’Italia museum in Piazza San Carlo: President Emeritus Giovanni Bazoli, Chairman Gian Maria Gros-Pietro and Carlo Messina, Managing Director and CEO, with the presence of the Mayor of Turin Chiara Appendino, the President of the Piedmont Regional Authority and other institutional authorities. The architect Michele De Lucchi, project chief with AMDL CIRCLE, highlighted how the exhibition areas will be mainly underground and accessed by a large staircase set in the current courtyard, which will allow natural light into the entrance hall. The building project includes educational areas and a restoration laboratory. The exhibition will also occupy the second floor, the main floor of the building that faces out directly onto Piazza San Carlo and has richly decorated rooms with stuccoes and mirrors where the works will be displayed.

The building work will start in the next few months and will last for a couple of years.

A large bank like Intesa Sanpaolo achieves its mission through supporting the country’s economy, by providing financing and services for businesses and families. In doing so, the Bank fosters and reinforces its social role, its relationships with the community and the regions where it operates thanks to solid historical and cultural roots. Protection, enhancement and public access to its collections are fundamental factors in the philosophy of social responsibility that Intesa Sanpaolo views as a vital element of growth and development. These are the basic principles that underpin its cultural mission and, therefore, the new Turin project.

This new museum further enriches the activities of Progetto Cultura, the three-year series of initiatives through which the Bank expresses its commitment to the promotion of art and culture in Italy, realised independently or in partnership with public and private qualified entities. The cornerstone of Progetto Cultura is the historical-artistic, architectural and documentary collections belonging to Intesa Sanpaolo. Over 30,000 works of art dated between the fifth century BC and the twenty-first century AD make up these collections, with approximately one thousand items exhibited permanently - these include masterpieces from the likes of Caravaggio, Tiepolo, Canaletto, Boccioni, Fontana and Manzoni. The Group also owns more than 20 prestigious buildings. There is an already-significant collection of archive documents, with items dating from 1472 to 2006, and a huge photographic archive recently enriched by the acquisition of the valuable Publifoto Archive which is composed of millions of photos and thousands of videos.

The Turin museum will benefit from the experience acquired by Intesa Sanpaolo in its other museums where the Bank exhibits its large artistic heritage - a collection with over 30,000 items ranging from archaeological artefacts to contemporary art that stands out for its richness and variety. In 2019, the three museums in Milan, Naples and Vicenza welcomed over 500,000 visitors with educational activities to entertain 84,000 young children and teenagers, and numerous initiatives for visitors with special needs (disabled people, underprivileged, foreign communities). Over the years the Gallerie d’Italia museums have established themselves as reliable partners for leading national and international museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, and the National Gallery in London. Over 200 works from the collection were loaned to other museums in Italy and abroad in 2019.

Progetto Cultura is set up by the Art, Culture and Historical Heritage Department of Intesa Sanpaolo, headed by Michele Coppola (also Director of Gallerie d’Italia).

Gallerie d’Italia is Intesa Sanpaolo’s museum hub, created to share with visitors the artistic heritage gathered from the over 250 financial institutions forming the Group. The collection is made up of around a thousand works of art, the most important pieces in the entire owned heritage, which are exhibited in three prestigious buildings transformed into museums in the centres of Milan, Naples and Vicenza. In each of these venues, there is also a rich agenda of temporary exhibitions.

- Gallerie d’Italia - Piazza Scala in Milan was inaugurated at the end of 2011 with the section “From Canova to Boccioni”, curated by Fernando Mazzocca and dedicated to the nineteenth century Lombardy collections of Fondazione Cariplo and Intesa Sanpaolo. This was followed in 2012 by the opening of the entire ground floor at Banca Commerciale Italiana, built in the early 1900s by Luca Beltrami, for the section “Cantiere del ‘900”, a permanent exhibition featuring collections from the twentieth century. This museum location has welcomed important exhibitions in recent years including “Hayez”, “Bellotto e Canaletto. Lo stupore e la luce”, “New York. New York. Arte Italiana. La riscoperta dell’America”, “L’ultimo Caravaggio. Eredi e nuovi maestri”, “Arte come rivelazione. La collezione Luigi e Peppino Agrati”, “Romanticismo”, and the current exhibition “Canova | Thorvaldsen. La nascita della scultura moderna”. For the last few years, the Sala delle Colonne has hosted themed exhibitions dedicated to contemporary art: in 2017 “Fausta Squatriti. Se il mondo fosse quadro, saprei dove andare…”, and “Omar Galliani. Intorno a Caravaggio”, and in 2018 “Pino Pinelli. Pittura oltre il limite”. In 2019, it hosted “Franca Ghitti: Altri Alfabeti. Sculture, installazioni e opere su carta”, “Prospettiva Arte Contemporanea. La Collezione di Fondazione Fiera Milano”, “Giacomo Balla. Genio futurista”, “Piero Dorazio. Forma e colore” and “Maurizio Galimberti. Il Cenacolo di Leonardo da Vinci”.

- Gallerie d’Italia - Palazzo Zevallos Stigliano in Naples was opened in 2007 with a complete renovation and extension project in 2014. The museum houses over 120 works that trace the development of figurative art in Naples and southern Italy between the early seventeenth century and the early twentieth century. These works are exhibited alongside the jewel in the crown of Intesa Sanpaolo’s collections: Caravaggio’s “Martyrdom of Saint Ursula”, the last painting by the Lombard great master. In recent years, the museum has organised exhibitions such as “Intorno alla Santa Caterina di Giovanni Ricca”, “Fergola. Lo splendore di un regno”, “Antonello da Messina. Ritratto d’uomo”, from Palazzo Madama, Turin, “Picasso. Arlecchino con specchio” from the Thyssen Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, “Caravaggio. I Musici” from the Metropolitan Museum of New York, “Leonardo da Vinci. La Scapiliata” from the Monumental Complex of Pilotta in Parma, “Le mille luci di New York, Basquiat, Clemente, Haring, Schnabel, Warhol”, “London Shadow. La rivoluzione inglese da Gilbert & George a Damien Hirst”, “Da Gemito a De Nittis. I napoletani a Parigi negli anni dell’Impressionismo”, “Rubens, Van Dyck, Ribera. La collezione di un principe”, “Compianto sul Cristo morto” by Sandro Botticelli from the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan, and, the current exhibitions “Berlin 1989. La pittura in Germania prima e dopo il Muro” and “David e Caravaggio. La crudeltà della natura, il profumo dell’ideale”.

- Gallerie d’Italia - Palazzo Leoni Montanari in Vicenza opened in 1999 and was also renovated in 2014. This museum houses a collection of Russian icons considered by experts to rank among the most important in the West (and due to go on display to the public in a new setting next spring), an important collection of Venetian eighteenth century paintings and a collection of Attic and Magna Graecia pottery, the historical “Caputi Collection”. As part of the “Il Tempo dell’Antico” project, a selection of vases from the large collection of Attic and Magna Graecia pottery is displayed in rotation. In recent years, the museum has staged these exhibitions: “Le Ambre della principessa”, “Ritratto di città. La Vicenza di Palladio nelle vedute di Zuccarelli”, “Il Crocifisso di Araceli”, “Giovanni Bellini. La Trasfigurazione di Cristo”, on loan from the Capodimonte Museum, Naples, “Grisha Bruskin. Icone Sovietiche”, “La seduzione. Mito e arte nell’Antica Grecia”, “Paparazzi. Fotografi e divi dalla Dolce Vita a oggi”, “Il trionfo del colore. Da Tiepolo a Canaletto e Guardi”, “Mito. Dei ed Eroi”, “Illustrissima. Malika Favre”, “Jean-Michel Basquiat. Moses and the Egyptians” from the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the current exhibitions “Paul Gauguin. Tahitiani in una stanza” from the Puškin Museum in Moscow and “Kandinskij, Gončarova, Chagall. Sacro e bellezza nell’arte russa”.

- For some years now, in addition to the three original museums, the Turin Skyscraper has also hosted various editions of the L’Ospite illustre initiative. The skyscraper has welcomed works by Giovanni Bellini (Madonna di Alzano) in 2019, Juan Bautista Maíno (Adorazione dei pastori) in 2018, Bronzino (Madonna con il Bambino, Sant’Elisabetta e San Giovannino) and Tiziano (Ritratto del conte Antonio di Porcia) in 2017, as well as the exhibition “Emilio Isgrò. I Promessi Sposi cancellati per venticinque lettori e dieci appestati”.

An early initiative introduced in 1989 in the Intesa Sanpaolo cultural project is the Restituzioni programme, which oversees the restoration of the country’s historical-artistic and architectural heritage. Every two years, in close collaboration with the public authorities, the Superintendencies, museum sites and independent museums, the programme identifies a significant number of works that require conservation, finances their restoration, and supports their enhancement with temporary exhibitions and the publication of exhibition catalogues. In 30 years of activity, the Restituzioni programme has saved and “returned” to the public over 1,500 works of art from museums, churches and archaeological sites all over Italy and in some European countries where the Group operates. The 19^th edition of the project is currently being organised, with the participation of all Italian regions.

The Historical Archives of Intesa Sanpaolo represent one of the most important banking archives in Europe. Founded in 1984 as the historical archives of Banca Commerciale Italiana, in Milan it currently manages the documentary heritage of Cassa di Risparmio delle Provincie Lombarde (founded in 1823), Banco Ambrosiano Veneto (1892), Banca Commerciale Italiana (1894), as well as the documentary heritage of Istituto Mobiliare Italiano (1931) in Acilia, Rome. All in all, it boasts around 12 km of documents, with papers dating from 1472 to 2006, 300,000 photographs, thousands of videos, a collection of around 1500 money boxes from around the world, as well as an iconography and museum section featuring the finest artists. It also coordinates safeguarding and promotion of other historical archives already belonging to the Group and held in the various regions of origin. The Historical Archives not only sum up the banking Group’s history but are also a collective cultural asset of great value, declared to be “of particularly important historic interest” by some regional archival and bibliographic authorities.

In 2015, Intesa Sanpaolo purchased the Publifoto Archive of Milan, one of the most important and authoritative Italian photojournalism agencies in terms of number of images and structure organisation. This step was taken to enhance this national cultural asset by careful management of the historical archives. The Archive includes around 7 million analogue photographs, mostly in black and white, glass plate and film negatives, proofs, colour prints and slides, dating from the early Thirties to the Nineties.

Progetto Cultura makes a further contribution to research studies on art, music, history, local traditions, and public and private heritage, thanks to the large range of themes addressed by the Intesa Sanpaolo publications.

Its publishing and music initiatives include series dedicated to works of art, the Bank’s historic buildings, the storytelling of art collections for children, and history, economics and documentary, art and music publications. The multimedia Vox Imago project, set up in partnership with leading Italian opera houses, provides educational aids for teachers and students. Now in its sixteenth edition, the series is intended to help promote knowledge about opera music.

FOR PRESS MATERIALS AND IMAGES, CLICK THE FOLLOWING LINK: https://bit.ly/36K0gu4

Press information

Intesa Sanpaolo

Media Office for Institutional, Social and Cultural Activities

stampa@intesasanpaolo.com

About Intesa Sanpaolo

Intesa Sanpaolo is one of the most solid and profitable banks in Europe, providing wealth management, consumer banking, corporate and investment banking, asset management and insurance. As the market leader in Italy, Intesa Sanpaolo serves nearly 12 million customers through digital and traditional channels. The Group’s international subsidiary banks provide for an additional 7.2 million customers in Central Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Intesa Sanpaolo is recognized as one of the most sustainable banks in the world.

The Group believes that value creation should be interpreted broadly, supporting social purpose and driving the real economy. As part of its commitment to sustainable growth, Intesa Sanpaolo has created a €5 billion financing facility dedicated to the circular economy. The Group’s large-scale project for economic inclusion and poverty alleviation includes a Fund for Impact to provide €1.2 billion in loans to those parts of society that find access to credit difficult. Intesa Sanpaolo is deeply committed to cultural initiatives that it promotes on its own and together with partners in Italy and abroad, including permanent and temporary exhibits of the vast artistic patrimony at the Gallerie d’Italia, the Group’s three museums located in Milan, Naples and Vicenza.