The exhibition A museum for the École: the collection of antiquities of the École française de Rome, hosted in the exhibition spaces of the Gallery in Piazza Navona 62, home of the École, was born as part of the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of the École française de Rome.
Curated by archaeologists Christian Mazet and Paolo Tomassini, it is open to the public from until December 2024, with free admission.
The exhibition presents a rich collection, displayed for the first time, of around 200 finds including sculptures, Etruscan-Lazio terracottas, Greek and Etruscan vases, as well as documents from the archives of the École française de Rome and from the inventories of the Palazzo Farnese's furnishings. The exhibition, as the current director of the École Brigitte Marin recalls, realizes after 150 years the desire of the first director of the institution, Auguste Geffroy, to set up a museum of antiquities to train its members through the practice of archaeology. Established at the end of the nineteenth century, the collection is a product of excavations carried out by the institution and resulting from purchases and donations of heterogeneous objects.
The itinerary is divided into five sections: the first section is dedicated to the history of collecting and the antiques market at the end of the nineteenth century; the second section is dedicated to the first excavations carried out by the École française de Rome in Palestrina in 1878, with a large collection of Etruscan-Lazio votive terracottas; the third section is dedicated to the presentation of Roman sculptures; the fourth section, which analyzes the trade in antiquities in Rome in the second half of the nineteenth century, presents the wonderful collection of vases donated by Augusto Castellani. Finally, the fifth section presents a great variety of objects, attesting, in their heterogeneity, the Roman material culture, for the main part.
The exhibition is also presented in a virtual form, with 3D models projected in the form of holograms, videos on screens and QR codes that give access to the online catalog of individual objects. A reference monography for the exhibition, which will be released in autumn 2024, represents the first scientific publication entirely dedicated to the archaeological collection of the École française de Rome. The book is edited by Christian Mazet and Paolo Tomassini, former members of the École française de Rome in the Antiquities section.
Photo credits: Christian Mantuano - View of the early Christian sarcophagus displayed in the Loggia of Palazzo Farnese
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