PRESS RELEASE

 

The new Gallerie d’Italia in Naples hosts the exhibition that concludes the 19th edition of Restituzioni, the restoration program of works belonging to Italy’s artistic heritage, curated and promoted by Intesa Sanpaolo

• The exhibition, which concludes the two-year period of restorations, inaugurates the new exhibition space at Gallerie d’Italia in Naples on Via Toledo
  
• Around 200 works will be on display, from antiques to contemporary pieces, with the participation of 80 restoration laboratories and 54 conservation organisations
• Among the art heritage that has been “returned to the community”, we find the treasure of Napoleon, works by Antonello da Messina, Giovanni Bellini, Cima da Conegliano, Bronzino, Giulio Romano, Umberto Boccioni and Pellizza da Volpedo
• The restored treasures tell stories of rebirth, such as paintings stolen and recovered in a forest in Tolve, and a prestigious charred find from Herculaneum
• The project saw all Italian regions working together for the first time; Europe is represented by a Carpaccio masterpiece from Paris, and the wider world by the Pompeii mosaic damaged in the fire in Rio de Janeiro in 2018
• The 19th edition has also allowed the restoration of the great painting by Veronese, Cena di san Gregorio Magno [Supper of Saint Gregory the Great], preserved in Vicenza in the Basilica of Monte Berico
• Throughout 19 editions of the bank’s initiative, launched in 1989, over 2,000 works have been returned to the community
• The project testifies to Intesa Sanpaolo’s commitment to safeguarding Italy’s artistic heritage and its protection of all territories, their identity and cultural resources

 

Milan, 15 April 2022 – 21 May sees the opening at Naples’ Gallerie d’Italia of the final exhibition of the nineteenth edition of Restituzioni, the two-year program for the safeguarding and enhancing of Italy’s artistic heritage that Intesa Sanpaolo has been directing for over thirty years in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture.

The exhibition inaugurates the new venue Gallerie d’Italia venue in Naples, confirming Intesa Sanpaolo’s cultural commitment and its profound interest in the restoration and safeguarding of the country’s immense artistic heritage.

Open until 25 September 2022, the exhibition presents the result of the restoration of 87 groups of works comprising of a total of more than 200 individual artefacts, selected by the banking institute together with 54 conservation and safeguarding organisations (Authorities, Regional Museum Directorates and autonomous museums) and belonging to 80 proprietary bodies, including public and diocesan museums, churches and places of worship, and archaeological sites. The scientific curatorship is by Carlo Bertelli, Giorgio Bonsanti and, starting with the current edition, Carla Di Francesco.

Created in the Veneto region and initially dedicated to that area, the Restituzioni program has grown hand in hand with the growth of Intesa Sanpaolo, gradually reaching a wider sphere of influence. In the current edition, which has largely coincided with the period that has disrupted initiatives and routines across the globe, Intesa Sanpaolo has decided to give continuity to the project by renewing its commitment to a struggling industry—that of restoration—which has always seen Italy play a role of excellence in the world.

An initiative aimed at protecting the national heritage, which has never changed its initial mission and which, at the same time, has expanded and been renewed over the decades, collaborating in this edition with 80 qualified restoration laboratories and dozens of conservation scientists engaged in diagnostics throughout Italy, in addition to the Opificio delle Pietre Dure of Florence, the Istituto Centrale per il Restauro di Roma and the Centro Conservazione e Restauro “La Venaria Reale” di Torino.

The selected works testify to the richness of Italy’s great museums and major art cities, but also to the importance of identity for the Italian territory expressed in smaller towns and villages, painting a picture that is faithful to the concept of a distributed museum that characterises our peninsula.

In this view of the entire territory, the bank has chosen to further extend the area of reference of Restituzioni, which in the 19th edition involves for the first time all Italian regions, thus fully consecrating its national dimension.

As has been the practice for four editions now, Restituzioni also extends beyond Italy and through Europe, in areas where the Group is present, as well as outside Europe.

Representing Europe this year will be France, with a masterpiece by Vittore Carpaccio from the Jacquemart-André Museum in Paris.

Brazil will give the project a global dimension, in an important effort to save a Pompeian fresco that was severely damaged in the terrible fire that devastated Rio de Janeiro’s Museu Nacional in 2018.

The 19th edition of Restituzioni covers a chronological span of 26 centuries, ranging from antiquity to the contemporary period and providing a broad panorama of Italy’s artistic heritage. Among the works being restored are a group of bronze mirrors from the 6th-5th centuries from the Museo Archeologico Nazionale of Locri; the fascinating Kouros di Rhegion [Kouros of Rhegion], 500-490 BC, from the Museo Archeologico Nazionale of Reggio Calabria; the now charred wooden Larario [Lararium] from Herculaneum; the three early Christian floor mosaics from the great baths of Aquileia; the spectacular Polittico [Polyptych] by Giusto de’ Menabuoi from the Baptistery of Padua; the large silver ante-reliquary, from the 1570s, from the Museo Diocesano of Andria; San Girolamo penitente [Penitent Saint Jerome] and La visita dei tre angeli ad Abramo [The Visitation of the Three Angels to Abraham] by Antonello da Messina from the Pinacoteca Civica of Reggio Calabria; the Trittico di San Lorenzo [Triptych of San Lorenzo] by Giovanni Bellini and workshop, circa 1461-62, from the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice; Giovanni Bellini’s masterpiece, La Trasfigurazione [The Transfiguration], from the Museo di Capodimonte, from which also comes the Madonna con Bambino e i santi Elisabetta e Giovannino [Madonna and Child with Saints Elizabeth and John] by Agnolo Bronzino; the Polittico di Sant’Anna di Capodistria [Polyptych of Saint Anna of Koper] by Cima da Conegliano, dated 1513, from the Museo di Palazzo Ducale in Mantua; the cartoon by Giulio Romano, La battaglia di Constantino contro Massenzio al Ponte Milvio [The Battle of Constantine against Maxentius at Ponte Milvio], 1521, from the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan; the Arazzi con episodi della guerra di Troia (o effetti dell’Ira, o della Collera) [Tapestries with episodes of the Trojan War (or the effects of Wrath)] from the Museo dell’Università of Bologna; the marvellous Pala detta di San Domenico [Pala of Saint Domenico] by Romanino from the Pinacoteca Tosio-Martinengo in Brescia; the canopy with the Virgin and Child from Predazzo; the  processional Croci [Crosses] from the Museo dell’arte Sacra della Marsica in Celano; the paintings of Santa Cecilia e Santa Apollonia [Saint Cecilia and Saint Apollonia], literally returned to their ancient splendour after a daring adventure, from Tolve; the Sole [Sun] by Pellizza da Volpedo from the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome; the painting Dinamismo di un corpo umano [Dynamism of a Human Body] by Umberto Boccioni, 1913, from the Museo del Novecento in Milan; the majestic Campana [Bell] by Luigi Mainolfi of 1979-80 from the Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Turin.

Among the great variety of works there is no lack of peculiar objects, such as the 15th-century paper-membrane codes of the Divine Comedy from the Biblioteca dell’Università of Bologna; the Messale del vescovo François de Prez [Missal of Bishop François de Prez], a manuscript from around 1464-1470 from the Cathedral of Aosta; the funeral veil of Cardinal Branda Castiglioni from the Museo della Collegiata of Castiglione Olona; the Camicia Talismanica [Talismanic Shirt] in linen of Ottoman manufacture of the 17th century from the Museo delle Civiltà in Rome; the cloak worn by Napoleon for his coronation as King of Italy, which took place in the Cathedral of Milan in 1805, together with the crown, the staff of command, the sceptre and the hand of justice, all from the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan. The Presepio storico della parrocchiale di Santa Caterina di Cardè [Historical Nativity Scene of the parish church of Santa Caterina di Cardè] from the Palazzo dei Vescovi of Saluzzo will be placed side by side with the Nativity Scene of Francesco Londonio from the Museo Diocesano of Milan.

This edition of Restituzioni also includes the restoration of the Cena di san Gregorio Magno [Supper of St. Gregory the Great], promoted by the Municipality of Vicenza and the Soprintendenza Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio of Verona, Rovigo and Vicenza, supported by Intesa Sanpaolo on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Restituzioni program. The monumental painting on canvas by Paolo Veronese, commissioned for the Santuario di Monte Berico in Vicenza and immovable from the site for which it was created for conservation reasons, will be narrated in the exhibition through videos which, as in previous editions, allow visitors to follow the salient phases of the restoration of a wide selection of works.

The exhibition is accompanied by a series of editorial products aimed at spreading the knowledge of the results achieved by the restorations with the widest possible audience. The general catalogue with the historical-artistic files and the restoration reports of each work, published online in PDF format and freely downloadable from www.restituzioni.com, are available alongside a simple and informative paper guide to the exhibition. The Restituzioni website, a valuable archive of over 2,000 restored works, will also offer users videos of the main phases of the interventions of over 20 works restored in this edition.

 

RESTITUZIONI: A BRIEF HISTORY OF AN IMPORTANT PROGRAM

For the past 33 years, the bank has been working every two years with the ministerial bodies in charge of protection (Authorities, Regional Museum Directorates and autonomous museums) to identify works belonging to public, private or ecclesiastical museums, archaeological sites and churches throughout Italy in need of restoration and to support their interventions. The choice of the works follows a single criterion: listening to the needs of the territories to enhance their identity through interventions that prioritise the actual need and urgency of restoration. The objective is always to recover assets that are representative of the variety of Italy’s historical and artistic heritage, both in chronological terms and in terms of materials and techniques—painting on wood and canvas, frescoes, mosaics, sculpture in marble or stone, in bronze, textile artefacts, jewellery, etc. - masterpieces of undoubted importance, as well as works that are close to us and contribute to the experience of the territory. At the end of each edition, the restored works are displayed in an exhibition organised by Intesa Sanpaolo, where the public can appreciate the results of the restorers’ work.

Since 1989, more than 2,000 works have been “returned” to the community: a sort of ideal museum, with testimonies ranging from the most distant eras to the contemporary age, from archaeology to goldsmithing, plastic arts and painting. Hundreds of museums, archaeological sites and churches, which guarantee the public destination of their treasures, have benefited from this program. Just as many qualified restoration laboratories, distributed from North to South, have been entrusted with the task of restoration, and just as many scholars have been involved in the preparation of historical-critical reports for the catalogues. The curriculum also includes the restoration work carried out on works of monumental scale, such as the early Christian floor mosaics of the Basilica of Aquileia, the frescoes of Altichiero and Avanzo in the Cappella di San Giacomo nella Basilica del Santo in Padua, Lanfranco’s frescoes in the Cappella di San Gennaro nel Duomo di Napoli, Stefano Fiorentino’s 14th-century frescoes in Milan’s Abbazia di Chiaravalle, and the restoration of Manzoni’s House in Milan, a true “national” monument. In this context, moreover, in 2019, with the completion of thirty years of the activity of Restituzioni, restoration work began on the monumental Cena di san Gregorio Magno [Supper of St. Gregory the Great] by Paolo Veronese at the Basilica of Monte Berico in Vicenza, promoted by the City of Vicenza and the Soprintendenza Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio of Verona, Rovigo and Vicenza, the completion of which is expected in the spring of this year.

In addition to the Restituzioni project for the protection of public heritage, Intesa Sanpaolo expresses its commitment in the cultural sphere through the national and international appreciation of its conspicuous and prestigious historical, artistic, architectural and archival heritage—in particular in the museums of the Gallerie d’Italia in Milan, Naples, Vicenza and in the new headquarters in Turin—with the intention of sharing it with the wider community. The initiatives in the cultural field are implemented in a three-year intervention plan called Progetto Cultura, which includes exhibitions, meetings, educational and training activities as well as synergical activities with important national and international cultural institutions.

 

 

Press materials and images

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8tyunxcry3ee0dm/AAAOhIBZqoTaRlRq5KLsEXqma?dl=0

 

More informations on the web site

www.restituzioni.com

 

Press information

Intesa Sanpaolo

Media and Associations Relations

Institutional, Social and Cultural Activities

Silvana Scannicchio

Mobile + 39 335 7282324

silvana.scannicchio@intesasanpaolo.com

https://group.intesasanpaolo.com/en/newsroom/news

 

 

 

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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