COLLEZIONE
Permanent collection · Sale I — XII

Four thousand one hundred things, and a line

Panel, canvas, bronze, cloth, clay, paper and one wall of mosaic, hung at 152 centimetres whatever their century. On this page the line runs down instead of across: the label stays put on the left, and the work swings out as wide as it really is.

See it in the building →
A bronze bust of a woman seen in sharp profile against a pale ground
Profilo di AgneseDusan Krall · 1949 · bronze · 42 cm · inv. 1958.221
Close view of thick blue and cream oil paint laid on with a knife
Senza titolo (blu)Agnese Rolfi · 2019 · oil on linen · 180 × 140 cm · inv. 2021.016

Six works, to scale

The plate on the right is as wide, against its neighbours, as the work is on the wall. The tapestry is five metres across. The Faenza jug is the height of a bottle of wine.

1Unknown, FlemishArazzo del contec. 1620 · wool and silk · 340 × 520 cminv. 1934.088
A broad woven tapestry crowded with court figures around a central portrait
2Workshop of the Via SerpiApse fragment with two donorsc. 540 · glass tesserae, gold leaf · 310 × 220 cminv. 1927.001
A gold-ground mosaic in an apse showing two robed figures in procession
3Noemi ScarabelliTaglio XVII1964 · oil and sand on board · 120 × 120 cminv. 1989.402
A dark abstract painting built from heavy blue and orange impasto
4Alma VitturiDonna con libro chiuso1931 · oil on canvas · 74 × 58 cminv. 1962.114
A painted portrait of a woman in a black dress holding an open book
5Pietro MasenghiTesta frammentata1971 · cast bronze · 38 × 24 × 26 cminv. 1974.055
A bronze head cast with a fragmented, broken surface across the brow
6Bottega di FaenzaBoccale con stemma1556 · tin-glazed earthenware · 31 cminv. 1930.142
A tin-glazed jug painted with a crest in cobalt and ochre
A top-lit gallery with visitors blurred by their own movement past the pictures
Six departments

Everything belongs to one of six keepers

A marble group of three carved figures on a shared pedestal

Sculpture

412 works · keeper: Fulvia Zanon

A close view of floral needlepoint worked in magenta, blue and green

Textiles

188 works · keeper: Marek Oyelaran

A hand drawing a charcoal line across a large sheet of paper

Works on paper

2,206 works · keeper: Tomas Ehrlich

Black-figure pottery arranged on a dark plinth under a case light

Ceramics and glass

640 works · keeper: Fulvia Zanon

A painted portrait of a bearded sitter emerging from a black ground

Painting

511 works · keeper: Chiara Benedetti

A vaulted gallery with gilded ceiling ornament and figures along the walls

Wall painting, and one mosaic

144 works, most of them immovable · keeper: Chiara Benedetti

What the keepers are showing now
Framed works resting on easels in a row before being hung
Study room, Wednesday morning. Four works out at once, no more.
Two hands turning the pages of an open volume lit from above in a dark room
The accession registers, 1924 to 1988, still on paper.

Ninety-four per cent of this collection is in a box

Twelve rooms hold 246 works. The other 3,854 are in the store under the east wing at 19 °C and 50 % relative humidity. You can ask to see any of them. Write to the study room by Friday, name the inventory number, and we will have it out on a Wednesday — four works per visit, two hours, pencils only.

Members book the study room first

Four ways in

Before 1000
1400 — 1700
1850 — 1940
After 1945
A wall painting in deep red with a pale decorative panel at its centre

Before 1000 · Sale I — II

Everything the 1926 drainage works under Via dei Serpi turned up: a Roman house, a sixth-century church floor, and the apse fragment — the only gold-ground mosaic in the province, and the only one we will ever own. The red wall panels were lifted whole on a steel frame and weigh 900 kg each. Low light, no flash, and a bench.

188 works · 2 rooms · 1 immovable
A barrel-vaulted gallery receding into the distance with visitors walking its length

Ask for a work

Tell us the inventory number and a Wednesday. The study room takes six people at a time and is free to anybody with a reason, members or not.

Study room, opening hours and rules→