Last weekend, the National Archaeological Museum of Aquileia opened a unique exhibition of its kind - "Wounded Archeology", combining monuments of ancient Roman art from the museum's collection with items from the National Museum of Bardo in Tunis. In March 2015, a terrorist attack was carried out in Bardo, which claimed the lives of 21 people. “In the light of today's events, it is our absolute duty to draw attention to these monuments,” explains Antonio Zanardi Landi, head of the Aquileia Foundation, and in the recent past, the Italian ambassador to the Russian Federation, who oversaw the “Year of Italy in Russia” (2011). …
The idea of the exhibition was born on May 18, 2015, two months after the tragedy in Bardo, during a visit to Tunisia by Italian President Sergio Mattarella, accompanied by Zanardi Landi, during which the head of the Italian Republic also visited the affected museum.
Bardo is one of the largest museums in Africa, most of its collection is made up of works of antiquity, originating from the territory of modern Tunisia. Best known for his collection of ancient Roman mosaics from the first centuries of our era, one of the best in the world. Aquileia is a unique monument of late antique and early Christian archeology in northeastern Italy, near Trieste. At that time, the city, where now less than five thousand live, had about 100,000 inhabitants, it was the residence of the emperor, an important center of Christianity, the site of church councils; from that time until the 18th century, the Aquileia Patriarchate existed. Aquileia is famous for its large-scale mosaics of excellent preservation, and therefore it is often called the Northern Pompeii. In 1998, the archaeological sites and the complex of the Patriarchal Basilica of Aquileia were included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Eight works from the collection of the Bardo Museum are designed to show the commonality and originality of the cultures of the Southern and Northern Mediterranean, which for centuries have peacefully contacted, had close economic and cultural ties. The small number of items is explained by the complexity and high cost of transportation, as well as the high value of the exhibits for the permanent exhibition of the Bardo Museum, such as, for example, the famous portrait of Emperor Lucius Vera II century. or a statue of the god Jupiter from the same period. In addition to the sculpture, the stele of Marcus Lucinius Fidelia of the 1st century, two late antique vases, as well as mosaics that “enter into dialogue” with the Aquileia vases were brought, clearly confirming the idea of the exhibition, as commented by the Minister of Culture Dario Franceschini: “There are many completely different people belonging to different cultures and different religions, which are "on the same side". The Mediterranean unites, not divides."
For centuries, Aquileia, a port city on the Adriatic, was an important center for cultural exchange, both in antiquity and in the early Middle Ages. Direct evidence of this is the objects from the collection of the Aquileia Museum, found here, but originating from Tunisia. “We must find that ancient spirit again,” said Deborah Serrakchiani, President of the Friuli-Giulia region, at the presentation of the exhibition.
The exhibition should be the first in a series of projects by the Aquileia Foundation dedicated to cultural monuments that have suffered from terrorism. These projects, responding to the common problems of different cultures of modern civilization, will have to remind of their common foundations. As the director of the Bardot Museum Moncef Ben Moussa noted in his message, “the audience will see, in a sense, themselves, their history and culture. The exhibition is a kind of invitation to discover ourselves in the history of others."
The exhibition will run until January 31, 2016
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