The widespread myth about Rome - the city of museums in fact turned out to be only a consequence of grammatical embarrassment: a city-museum - of course, but there was always a shortage of specialized repositories of cultural values as such. All well-known "temples of art" are private collections located in the family palazzo, most of which have already been sold or transferred to the state and the city commune (most often for tax debts, and not at all for patriotic reasons). The state acquired the Corsini collection together with the palazzo in 1883, the Borghese in 1902. The collections were kept indivisible in the same palaces from which they originated, or were sent to storerooms. Doria Pamphili, Colonna and Pallavicini are still the property of the family, which is most noticeable for a tourist in the way they work: the first - without the museum days off "Mondays", the second - only half a day on Saturday, and the third - generally only on the first day of each months. That is, it is difficult to talk about museums as professional organizations conducting exposition activities, because all of these are, rather, “manor-museums”, and not art museums in the usual European sense.
But the museum business was born here: it was initiated by the popes, and it was supervised by them. Sixtus IV, in the spirit of the Renaissance, laid the foundation for the world's first true public museum, when in 1472 he donated to the Roman people a collection of ancient Roman sculpture, along with the Sistine Bridge and Chapel. The Antics then presented the Palazzo of the Conservatives at the Loggia. The building itself was opened for visiting already in 1734 by Pope Clement XII, the customer of the Trevi Fountain and the first restoration of the Arch of Constantine. Again in Rome, in the 1750s-60s, and again in the papal circle, with the collection of Cardinal Albani, Winckelmann works, raising the history of art and the description of monuments to a scientific level. And here, for the first time, architecture is directed towards the actual needs of the museum. The first specialized building dedicated to the display of works of art and open to the public was the Vatican Pio Clementino, founded by Pius VI in 1771, and to which the Braccia Nuova Hall was added in 1817–1822 by the architect Raphael Stern. This complex remained for a long time the only purpose-built museum within the boundaries of the Eternal City, while retaining Winkelmann's methods of work and not changing the exposition to this day. But after the army of King Victor Emmanuel II entered Rome in 1870, the Vatican museums with the Vatican itself ceased to have anything to do with the new capital of the new Italian Kingdom.
With the unification of the country, they started talking about the national idea, in which the art and the image of Great Rome inevitably got the first role. However, despite the pathetic Garibaldian speeches, there was no rush to materialize this idea. Rome is the only capital of a large state in Europe, where in the 19th century - the century of city reconstructions and their filling with impressive buildings of public educational organizations - not a single large art museum was built. The Palazzo degli Esposizioni (1876-1882), a belated version of the Roman triumphal Baroque with a modern innovation - a glass ceiling, on the "first street of modern Rome" Via Nazionale, was the first building in Italy devoted entirely to the needs of art. but not a permanent museum. Also during the active construction program of the exhibition premises in connection with the upcoming World Exhibition in 1911 and the 50th anniversary of the Unification of Italy, the Gallery of Modern Art, built by Cesare Bazzani in the same neo-baroque style of the Roman Academy of Arts of St. Luke, but with a subtle note of Vienna Secession, appeared. Then the gallery presented, within the framework of the national policy, all regional schools of the turn of the century. After the Expo, the gallery began to function as a museum of contemporary art with the same exposition, which, together with the funds, was supposed to be expanded through future purchases from large-scale exhibitions, for example, the Venice Biennale. There was no question of any Italian version of the National Gallery or Kunsthistorischemuseum, where the state collection of works of art, systematized by era and school, could be placed - simply because of the absence of this collection.
In an effort to rectify the situation, within the framework of strengthening the same national idea, the new government began to actively establish museum organizations: the National Roman Museum (Museo Nazionale Romano) - in 1889, opened for the already mentioned World Exhibition of 1911 in the Baths of Diocletian prepared for exhibition purposes, National the Museum of Etruscan Art (established in 1889), housed in the Villa Giulia, and two art galleries - the National Ancient (1893) and the National Modern (1883) art. During the twentieth century, these organizations grew, receiving additional buildings at their disposal. Thus, the jurisdiction of the National Roman Museum today includes, in addition to Thermes, the Palazzo Altemps, the Crypt of Balbi and the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme. The Gallery of Ancient Art includes the collections at the Palazzo Barberini and Corsini. It is also adjoined by the Spada Gallery, a collection acquired in 1927 together with the palazzo of the same name from the cardinal of the same name, Palazzo Venezia together with the collection, the Museum of Musical Instruments and the apotheosis of Roman museification - the "Museum of the Trident", which consists of the ensemble of Piazza del Popolo and includes all the architectural structures that form it, with all their contents.
However, there was no major museum construction in the city of Rome in the twentieth century, and the Vatican Museums remained the only large museum complex, which, as already noted, have nothing to do with the state of Italy and its capital, Rome. But the construction activities in the museum sphere were still carried out: in the 1930s, the Baths of Diocletian, the Gallery of Modern Art and the Palace of Exhibitions, begun at the turn of the century, were completed, in the 1950s - the beginnings of the 1930s: the Museum of Roman Civilization, the Early Middle Ages and Folk Art in the EUR while maintaining the style of the defeated fascist regime. Then, after a rather long pause, a revival took place in the 1990s in the so-called. industrial archeology. The example of the Montemartini thermal power plant is extremely interesting. In 1912 it was opened by Ernesto Nathan, the first liberal mayor of the city, who stood up for freedom and progress: with this CHP began the electrification of Rome. In the late 1960s, the CHP was closed, and in the early 1990s, it was restored and converted into a museum of itself. By chance, in 1997, the collection of the Palazzo Conservatives, closed for renovation, was placed here. From antique sculpture, placed between the units of the 1910-1930s. formed a temporary exhibition "Gods and Machines", which later became a permanent exhibition of the world's only museum of both archeology and industry.
Guided by this positive example, a few years later, work began on repurposing for artistic needs, now - for the collection of contemporary art of the MACRO museum - two more industrial sites of the late 19th century. First - the brewery "Peroni", built in the 1880s in the then developing area near Porta Pia, then - the slaughter of the same years, built on the other side of the city, in the Testaccio area. First, in 2002, a space was opened in the Former Peroni Buildings, where, in addition to exhibition halls, there were also such attributes of a modern museum complex as a media library, a conference room and a creative laboratory. The "Former Slaughterhouse", consisting of two rooms, was opened in two stages: in 2003 - one pavilion, in 2007 - another. This complex, built in 1888-1891 by the architect Gioacchino Erzoch, is one of the most beautiful objects of industrial architecture in the city, and its adaptation to new needs was another, together with the Montemartini Museum, a step in the reorganization of the first industrial area of Rome. Then this space was named MACRO Future and soon turned out to be the only major state exhibition site for contemporary art: the Brewery was almost immediately (in 2004) closed for reconstruction, which was entrusted to the French architect Odile Decq. But more on that later.
The beginning of the "internationalization" of Roman architecture and the introduction of "contemporary" into Roman artistic life was laid back in 1997, when the Minister of Culture, member of the Democratic Party Walter Veltroni received from the Ministry of Defense a vast area with the long-abandoned Montello barracks between the Tiber and Via Flaminia. The purpose of the future object was declared "to awaken interest in modernity in the Italian society" Its town planning position was almost ideal: there are no major historical monuments, 4 tram stops are located in Piazza del Popolo, a “modern” attraction - the not so long ago opened Music Park by architect Renzo Piano, is a 10-minute walk away; on one side of the chosen place - the bourgeois quarter of Parioli, on the other, across the Tiber - also not poor Prati. There is also another modernist attraction: the Small Sports Palace of Pierre Luigi Nervi, widely known in Soviet literature on reinforced concrete structures, built for the Olympics-60.
They tried to urbanize this area between the Flaminia Gate and the Milvian Bridge since the beginning of the twentieth century: they built the Academy of Arts, the Ministry of the Navy, the building of the Faculty of Architecture, and a boulevard with benches was made from the central section of Via Flaminia. However, despite all these attempts, the area remained something between a sleeping and a ministerial, uninhabited and uninteresting for a visitor. The Romans and guests of the capital had nothing to do here. And then they decided to bring two identification components of the Italian nation there - music and visual arts. The music was handled by a "star" of local origin, Piano, while the museum went to a foreigner Zaha Hadid. And the Minister of Culture Veltroni three years later became the mayor of Rome.
It is necessary to mention here one more "star" foreign museum project, implemented in the "Veltroni era", a smaller scale, but caused a much greater resonance. This time, modern architecture was charged with the traditional Roman duty of serving archeology and placed in the historic center. The Museum of the Altar of Peace by architect Richard Mayer has become another Roman long-term construction: it took 6 years to build and was inaugurated in 2006, immediately becoming the epicenter of urban planning scandals. The Mayer building replaced the old canopy of the late 1930s by the architect Vittorio Morpurgo, who reconstructed the entire adjoining quarter of the Mausoleum of Augustus after its "liberation" from the concert hall of the Academy of Music of St. complex Renzo Piano. So Mayer became the first architect to develop a construction project within the boundaries of the Aurelian Wall after the cancellation in 1946 of all decrees of the fascist government on work in the historical center. The building of an American in the center of Rome, inside the most ambitious ensemble, realized inside a historical building in the era of Mussolini, looks like a kind of manifesto. The odious art critic Vittorio Sgarbi burned its layout, the new "right-wing" mayor of Rome, Gianni Allemano, suggested taking it to the outskirts and adapting it for other purposes. And the controversy around him does not subside. As a result, Mayer was forced to redo the project, and the conservative public was forced to come to terms with modernism.
Zaha's work in this vein became the opposite example and, indeed, achieved its goal - finally stimulated in the Romans an interest in "contemporaneo". If until recently a cultured Roman, having learned about the sphere of interests of the interlocutor - “modern architecture”, asked, curving and expecting a similar grimace in response: “What do you think about Ara Pacis?”, Now with a lively emotion: “Have you already been in MAXXI? " If you understand the reasons for such sympathy, there are many of them: from the Italian concern for the female sex to the love for elegant curiosities. MAXXI is not visible from a distance, it is not integrated into any panorama of the city so valued by the Roman population, and only from the side of the service entrance to the territory does the glass "eye-periscope" of the upper exhibition hall become a surprise, but it also rather brings animation to a rather boring living room development of the area. This is how the strict, almost orderly Mayer did not come to the court, despite the abundant use of travertine, and the concrete-glass Hadid, despite its complete indifference to the Italian sense of form and contempt for the right angle, found its place in the discerning Roman heart.
MAXXI was opened twice, which is quite symptomatic. In the first opening in November last year, the architecture itself was inaugurated, in the second - in May this year - the museum itself, in all museum ranks, with a permanent exhibition and large personal exhibitions, simultaneously with the Roman art fair “Roma. The road to contemporary art . At the same time, another high-profile opening of another long-awaited museum, which was already discussed above, MACRO Odile Decck, took place. This cut of the ribbon in May was not the first here either (after the first opening, let us remind you that it was already closed for reconstruction two years later), but it was not the last either. People were allowed into the museum for only a few days during the exhibition, and then it again stopped working until the fall, which, in general, is understandable, given the approaching summer holidays then.
This work was fundamentally different from MAXXI at least in that it was a reorganization of an already open museum, as well as the impossibility for an architect to wedge himself into the city landscape: the walls of the brewery should have been preserved so as not to violate the principles of "industrial archeology", as well as the nature of the landscape. The development of the Porta Pia neighborhood is far from what is considered historical by Italian standards: the ordinary eclecticism of ministries and residential buildings for their employees, where any building is the same type of multi-storey palazzo with a courtyard. Odile Decck worked on one of these courtyards (even the brewery was not an exception by the type of layout), equipping it with greenish glass ceilings, as well as, in the tradition of French modernism, with bare communications and a garden-terrace, eventually creating 10,000 m2 of exhibition space. areas. Thus, the actual "industrial archeology" is also combined with the actual architecture.
After such numerous investments in "modernization", the city and the Ministry of Culture could not help but pay tribute to things more characteristic of the image of the place: palaces and old masters. So, new exhibition halls of the National Gallery were opened in Palazzo Barberini, again after many years of twists and turns. “Finally, after 140 years of waiting, this historical gap has been filled in Rome … now the Italian capital, as well as other capitals of the world, will have its own little Louvre,” rejoiced at the opening Francesco Maria Giro, secretary of the Ministry of Culture for cultural values. And the Minister of Culture Sandro Bondi shared his impressions of the sums that the visitors of the Colosseum and the Caravaggio exhibition brought to the country's budget, pinning the same hopes on the renovated Palazzo Barberini, moreover admiring Raphael's Fornarina, which, on his initiative, was brought to the Great Hall, where the press was held -conference.
It cannot be said that these "140 years of waiting" passed in complete inaction. Attempts to create a large gallery of national art began immediately after the unification of Italy, but with varying success and an Italian pace. In 1893, the institution "National Gallery of Ancient Art" (Galleria Nazionale dell'Arte Antica) was established and placed in the Palazzo Corsini, donated to the state 10 years earlier along with the collection, adding the collections of Torlonia, Chigi, Hertz, Monte di Pieta and others Roman patricians. Almost immediately it became clear that Palazzo Corsini was not suitable for the role of a national art museum, either by the volume of its premises, or, apparently, by its location: Lungara Street in the Trastevere district, still quite difficult to reach and closed by the high fence of the Villa Farnesina, is not the best place to represent the national idea.
Palazzo Barberini intended to be adapted for public purposes for a long time. It was in this area that the new urban history of Rome unfolded, where the palazzo played an important role in the urban dominant. However, they purchased it to house the collection of the National Gallery only in 1949, from the Barberini princes who had already gone bankrupt and sold their collections. And then not the entire building passed into state ownership, but only the second floor, the only thing that at that time belonged to the princes who moved to the rooms of the third floor and lived there until 1964. Here, in ten halls, a collection of Italian art of the glorious 15th-17th centuries was placed. The rest, most of it, from the first days of the annexation of Rome to the Italian Kingdom and until 2006, housed the Officers' Assembly. Another institution that still occupies several premises of the Palazzo - the Institute of Numismatics - is awaiting the decision of its fate today.
The halls, opened in September this year, are premises freed from officers. The first floor houses a collection of the 12th - 15th centuries, five new ones were added to the rooms on the second floor. The restoration is of high quality, professional and therefore, apparently, restrained in visual effects. An important role was played by the fact that among the leaders of the work was the architect - Laura Caterina Cherubini. It was she who came up with the idea not to invent anew not preserved, but known from the sources of the upholstery of the walls, but to create a reminder of the precious fabric decoration with the help of tinting. The same applies to ceiling paintings and cornice plastering - focus on maximum authenticity. The most notable action was the restoration of the large hall with the famous “Triumph of Divine Providence” by Pietro da Cortona and the replacement of the upholstery on the walls. The most innovative is the lighting installation designed by the architect Adriano Caputa (Studioillumina), with the intention of presenting the architecture and exhibits in an equally favorable light.
The purpose of the opening of the new halls was to extract masterpieces from the storerooms and create an exposition built according to the historical principle. This was a significant innovation for the Roman museum business. The principle of preserving the integrity of the collection has always been elevated to an absolute here, the collection was allowed to be sold only in its entirety, and the 1934 law, which allowed the sale of individual items, is counted among the crimes of the fascist government. So, a significant event for the cultural community was the transfer in 1984 of the Corsini collection back from the Barberini palazzo to the palazzo of the same name and the return of its integrity to it. In the Spada Gallery, for example, there is a programmatically saved hanging of the Cardinal times, which is poorly perceived by the viewer. After all, a private collection, as you know, is valuable in the possession of masters and rarities and is not inclined to scientific systematization.
However, in the new exhibition of the Palazzo Barberini, an attempt was made to finally try to present a kind of "history of art without names." But, nevertheless, the systematic grouping of works is hardly readable, and the works look more like exhibits of a "museum-estate", and not as a panorama of the history of Italian art. It is all the more strange to see such an "interior" hanging in a country where there are such outstanding works by Carlo Scarpa as the expositions of the Castelvecchio Museum in Verona and the Canova gypsum library in Possagno, where the design of exhibitions is read as a separate course of lectures at the Faculty of Architecture.
Nevertheless, now we can say that now the connection of times in Rome has been restored: the chronological register "must see" has reached our days, and a long-standing duty has been given to classical art. However, not all at once. The second (!) Opening of the Palazzo Barberini is scheduled for spring, this time - for the presentation of the third floor, the reconstruction of the Altar of Peace Museum has already started. Someday the territory of the Imperial Forums will be closed for vehicles, and downstream of the Tiber, the City of Science with a new science museum will nevertheless be erected, of course, with the participation of some famous architect, and not even one. So one day Rome will be unrecognizable again. Panta rei - even in the Eternal City.
