PRESS RELEASE
INTESA SANPAOLO OPENS TWO NEW GALLERIE D’ITALIA MUSEUMS IN TURIN AND NAPLES
The four museums in the Bank's historic buildings – in Milan, Vicenza, Turin and Naples – bring Italy together through art and culture
In Turin, on Tuesday, 17 May, the "Gallerie d'Italia - Turin" will be opening: five floors dedicated to photography and Piedmontese Baroque. The museum will be home to the Intesa Sanpaolo Publifoto Archive. The cycle of paintings of the ancient Oratory of the Compagnia di San Paolo will be on display
In Naples, on Saturday, 21 May, the new premises of the "Gallerie d'Italia - Naples" will be opening: three times the current space. Caravaggio's Martyrdom of St. Ursula and Neapolitan painting will be on display; new expositions of ancient ceramics and contemporary art
Both architectural projects are the work of Michele De Lucchi – AMDL CIRCLE
The Milan and Vicenza museums will also be expanded in future
Turin/Naples, 15 March 2022 – Intesa Sanpaolo announces the opening of two new Gallerie d'Italia museums in the Bank's historic buildings, renovated according to the architectural design by Michele De Lucchi – AMDL Circle.
On Tuesday 17 May 2022 in Turin, at Palazzo Turinetti in Piazza San Carlo, Intesa Sanpaolo's registered office and historic headquarters, the Bank will inaugurate its fourth museum: ten thousand metres of exhibition space on five floors, three of which are underground. The architectural project transforms the spaces of Palazzo Turinetti into a unique place where photography and video art will document and preserve images, events and reflections to promote issues related to the evolution of ESG (environmental, social and governance) sustainability. The "Gallerie d'Italia - Turin" will be home to the Publifoto Intesa Sanpaolo Archive – with around 7 million shots taken from the 1930s to the 1990s by one of Italy's leading photojournalism agencies – and will display a selection of works from the Group's collections, including the cycle of paintings from the ancient Oratory of the Compagnia di San Paolo owned by the Bank.
On Saturday, 21 May 2022 in Naples, the new headquarters of the Gallerie d'Italia will be inaugurated in the monumental historic building of the former Banco di Napoli designed by architect Marcello Piacentini, located at Via Toledo 177. The "Gallerie d'Italia – Naples" triples the current spaces of Palazzo Zevallos Stigliano to ten thousand square meters. This is a highly impactful architectural project that updates the building without distorting its historical value. The size of the spaces puts the Neapolitan Galleries on a par with large national museums; the museological and museographic criteria adopted are in line with the most innovative, recognised international museum standards. A selection of Neapolitan and southern Italian paintings and sculptures from the beginning of the 17th to the first decades of the 20th century will be on display, starting with the masterpiece of the Intesa Sanpaolo collection, the Martyrdom of Saint Ursula by Caravaggio, as well as new expositions dedicated to Attic and Magna Graecia ceramics and modern and contemporary art.
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The opening of the two museums is a fundamental step by Intesa Sanpaolo in promoting culture in Italy and enhancing the value of its artistic heritage of over 35,000 owned works of art, the economic value of which been included at fair value in the financial statements since 2017.
The four Gallerie d'Italia museums – Milan, Naples, Turin and Vicenza – evoke common distinctive traits, consolidating the Intesa Sanpaolo museum system managed by the Bank's Progetto Cultura, created to enhance the historical and artistic heritage that has flowed into the Group over the years. The premises are historic buildings that were formerly the Bank's offices and that, in the renovation work guided by the new requirements – including opening to the public, protection and preservation of works of art, sustainability and full accessibility – maintain a clear recollection of their past functions.
The 2022-2025 Business Plan recently presented by Managing Director and CEO Carlo Messina reinforces Intesa Sanpaolo's commitment to culture with the expansion of the Bank's other two museums in Milan and Vicenza, leading to the doubling of the Gallerie d'Italia's total exhibition space by 2025 – from 14,200 square meters to 30,000 square meters – and consolidating the Group's position among the top private cultural operators internationally in terms of reputation, commitment and the size, quality and financial value of the collection: a commitment that is in keeping with the Group's ESG activities.
Both museums will implement numerous activities, including original temporary exhibitions, education for schools, scientific research and social inclusion initiatives. Some of the spaces will be available for city events and initiatives.
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Le Gallerie d’Italia – Turin
The entrance to the new Gallerie d'Italia – Turin will be from the current access to the Bank's courtyard, Piazza San Carlo 156, through a large staircase that will also become a place of socialisation and will lead visitors to the underground exhibition spaces intended for exhibitions.
On the first underground floor, the project foresees the presence of classrooms with modular spaces characterised by a large window that overlooks the "Sala dei 300", the historic hall where the meetings of the Istituto Bancario Sanpaolo-IMI were held before the construction of the Turin skyscraper. Temporary exhibitions will be housed here.
The second underground floor, where the ticket office will be located, will be a place of communication and gathering, including for visiting schoolchildren, a hub of the museum from which the public can decide how to move through itineraries according to their choices and interests. A long hallway designed for classic photography will lead to the rooms on the third underground floor where the Publifoto Intesa Sanpaolo Archive will be located, visible to visitors through a large window. A large touchscreen panel will allow consultation of the Archive's digitised images, thus made accessible for collective enjoyment. This floor will house one of the major elements that characterize the Turin Galleries: a multimedia room (40 x 14 m), a true jewel of technology and innovation, equipped with 17 4K projectors that can offer visitors the feeling of being literally immersed in images and videos.
The museum itinerary is not limited to the underground spaces. On the ground floor the public will find an open-air cloister bounded by Piazza San Carlo, Via XX Settembre and Via Santa Teresa, where a new bookshop, café and restaurant will also be opening.
On the first floor of the Palazzo, in the row of rooms overlooking Piazza San Carlo, the museum itinerary curated by Fernando Mazzocca, Alessandro Morandotti and Gelsomina Spione will display about 50 works – paintings, sculptures, tapestries and furnishings – dating from the 14th to the 18th century, displayed in dialogue with the building's late-Baroque decorations (panelling, woodwork and mirrors). A dedicated room will also host the nine large canvases owned by the Bank made in the second half of the 17th century to decorate the ancient Oratory of the Compagnia di San Paolo, now destroyed. On the same floor, the historic "Turinetti Room" will be used for events and city initiatives.
The Turin museum will be run by Michele Coppola, Executive Director Art Culture and Historical Heritage and Director of Gallerie d'Italia, assisted by Deputy Director Antonio Carloni, former director of the international festival Cortona On The Move.
The two inaugural exhibitions
The exhibition spaces will be inaugurated with the exhibition "La fragile meraviglia. Un viaggio nella natura che cambi" ("Fragile wonder: A journey into changing nature") by Paolo Pellegrin, a photojournalism exhibition dedicated to the theme of climate change, curated by Walter Guadagnini, with the contribution of Mario Calabresi. The work is the result of an original commission that took the photographer to countries such as Namibia, Iceland, Costa Rica and Italy to provide a personal interpretation, in the form of images, of the relationship between man and his natural environment: a crucial theme of contemporary life. Pellegrin's reflection in images will engage in dialogue with the exhibition "Dalla guerra alla luna. 1945-1969" ("From War to the Moon: 1945-1969"), a selection of historical images from the Intesa Sanpaolo Publifoto Archive curated by Giovanna Calvenzi and Aldo Grasso, documenting the economic miracle leading up to the greatest achievement of modern man: the moon landing.
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Le Gallerie d’Italia – Naples
The building site in Via Toledo 177, the historic headquarters of Banco di Napoli, began in 2020, maintaining full continuity both of the banking activities housed in the building and the exhibition activities of Palazzo Zevallos Stigliano.
This impactful architectural project updates the building, whose main body was designed in 1940 by Marcello Piacentini, while preserving its historical value, as done for the other Gallerie d'Italia locations.
Works from the permanent collection are spread along three themed itineraries. On the second floor of the museum, the section curated by Fernando Mazzocca houses paintings and sculptures, mainly from the Neapolitan and southern areas, dating from the early 17th century to the first decades of the 20th century, starting with the absolute masterpiece of the collections, Caravaggio's Martyrdom of Saint Ursula , the last painting by the master made in May 1610, a few weeks before his death. Notable names include Artemisia Gentileschi, Luca Giordano, Gaspar van Wittel, Anton Smink Pitloo, Giacinto Gigante and Domenico Morelli. A collection of drawings and sculptures by Vincenzo Gemito forms one of the most important collections of the great artists' work, effectively documenting his extraordinary artistic career.
The second floor will house exhibitions of Attic and Magna Graecia ceramics and works from the modern and contemporary art collections. The former exhibition, curated by Fabrizio Paolucci, presents for the first time to the public in its entirety Intesa Sanpaolo's historic Caputi Collection, consisting of over 500 vases and other artefacts made in Athens, Apulia and Lucania between the 5th and 3rd centuries BC, all from Ruvo di Puglia, a town in the province of Bari that played a very important political, economic and cultural role in Magna Graecia.
On the same floor, a row of rooms overlooking Via Toledo hosts the second exhibition: a selection of works from Intesa Sanpaolo's collection of 20th and 21st century art, curated by Luca Massimo Barbero, an evocative journey through chronological juxtapositions from the post-War period to contemporary art. There are works by Lucio Fontana, Alberto Burri, Piero Manzoni, Enrico Castellani, Mario Schifano, Giulio Paolini, Alighiero Boetti, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Giosetta Fioroni, Carol Rama, Afro, Emilio Vedova, Gerhard Richter, Jannis Kounellis and Sol LeWitt.
The Gallerie d'Italia – Naples is, for all intents and purposes, a place for the people. Continuity and close connection with the urban space is established by the monumental entrance hall, which functions in symbiosis with the street. The beating heart of the building will be the large hall on the ground floor dedicated to temporary exhibitions and major cultural initiatives by top international artists and curators. The cafeteria-bistro and the bookshop can be freely accessed from Via Toledo.
Three classrooms on the second floor allow the expansion of educational activities for schools and specific audiences, always free of charge, which over the years have represented a fundamental element of the Bank's commitment to the community. A new library with a set of volumes from Intesa Sanpaolo's book collection, connected to Italy's National Library Service, will offer scholars and enthusiasts the opportunity to delve into themes and aspects related to the works in the museum's collections and temporary exhibitions.
The Neapolitan museum will continue to be run by Michele Coppola, Executive Director Art Culture and Historical Heritage and Director of the Gallerie d'Italia, assisted by Deputy Director Antonio Ernesto Denunzio.
The first temporary exhibition hosted in the new location will be the final exhibition of the 19th edition of Restituzioni, the two-year programme of safeguarding and enhancing the national artistic heritage that Intesa Sanpaolo has been conducting for over 30 years in collaboration with the Italian Ministry of Culture. The public heritage works from archaeological sites, museums and places of worship from all over Italy restored thanks to Intesa Sanpaolo over the last three years (the pandemic has delayed, but stopped, the project) will be exhibited to the public.
PRESS MATERIALS AND IMAGES FOR GALLERIE D'ITALIA - TURIN: https://bit.ly/35WlxFK
PRESS MATERIALS AND IMAGES FOR GALLERIE D'ITALIA - NAPLES: https://bit.ly/3Jf44qE
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About Intesa Sanpaolo
Intesa Sanpaolo is Italy’s leading banking group – serving families, businesses and the real economy – with a significant international presence. Intesa Sanpaolo’s distinctive business model makes it a European leader in Wealth Management, Protection & Advisory, highly focused on digital and fintech. An efficient and resilient Bank, it benefits from its wholly-owned product factories in asset management and insurance. The Group’s strong ESG commitment includes providing €115 billion in impact lending by 2025 to communities and for the green transition, and €500 million in contributions to support people most in need, positioning Intesa Sanpaolo as a world leader in terms of social impact. Intesa Sanpaolo is committed to Net Zero by 2030 for its own emissions and by 2050 for its loan and investment portfolios. An engaged patron of Italian culture, Intesa Sanpaolo has created its own network of museums, the Gallerie d’Italia, to host the bank's artistic heritage and as a venue for prestigious cultural projects.
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Last updated 16 March 2022 at 13:30
