Museums in Rome are among the oldest and most famous in the world, prized for their outstanding collections, collecting histories, and architecture. Together, they present a full range of Western European museum history in one of the most consequential of historic cities. Roman museums begin with 15th-century papal gifts of ancient bronze statues to the Capitoline Hill and progress to world-class Baroque-era private collections, the labyrinthine Vatican museums, national museums of world civilizations, modernism, and antiquities and an “archistar” institution for contemporary art, bringing the Eternal City’s cultural life up to the present moment.
The 21st century is a particularly engaging moment to study the history of museums. Due to pressing concerns about new ways to make old art accessible, global art, decolonization, and the social and political responsibilities of culture, museums are undergoing great periods of self-reflection. This KNIR dialogue series proposes a set of public lectures and conversations with current museum directors in Rome who are particularly engaged in institutional introspection. In this way, audiences can learn more about the legacies that Roman museums choose to reflect on today and the challenges and solutions for reinterpreting the past in the present and for the future.
This is our third Roman Museum Legacies Dialogue, which will be moderated by our Museum Fellow, Dr. Laurie Kalb Cosmo.
The Museum Directors Dialogues are events in person and live streamed.
About dott.ssa Francesca Cappelletti, director of the Galleria Borghese
Francesca Cappelletti is Director of Galleria Borghese since November 2020 and a professor – currently on leave – of the history of modern art at the University of Ferrara. She has dedicated herself for years to the study of Italian art collecting from the Renaissance to the 19th century, and published books and articles on foreign artists in Italy, in particular the followers of Caravaggio, the history of art collecting in Italy, and on the birth of landscape painting. She reconstructed the formation and layout of the Galleria Doria Pamphilj in Rome on the basis of archival research and has been a member of the Consiglio Superiore dei Beni Culturali of the Mibact (Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities), of which she was the vice-chairperson from 2014 to 2018 and on the committee instituted by the President of Italy for the opening to the public of the Quirinal Palace in 2015.
