Museo Aristaios - Collezione Sinopoli

The Sala del Peduncolo is a space of over 300 square metres inside the Auditorium that permanently houses the 161 works purchased from the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities by the heirs of Maestro Giuseppe Sinopoli.

The redevelopment and installation work, designed by the Alvisi Kirimoto studio, was carried out with funds from the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and with the contribution of the Chamber of Commerce.

The 161 works on display are mainly ceramics covering a chronological period between the 19th and 3rd centuries B.C., examples of Minoan, Mycenaean, geometric, Corinthian, Laconic, Greek-Oriental, black and red-figure Attic, red-figure Italiot and indigenous Daunia (Apulia) ceramic production.

Also on display: a marble vase of Cycladic production (3200-2700 BC), Etruscan and Magna-Greek bronze vessels and a conspicuous series of terracottas from the Minoan and Mycenaean periods to the Hellenistic period. These are mainly votive statuettes depicting gods and devotees, but also animals (cattle, a dove). Among the statuettes there is also a fragmentary stone kouros, archaic, of Cypriot production.

There are works by the main black-figure painters, including Lydos, the Lysippides Painter, members of the Nikostenes circle, and Attic red-figure painters, such as the Painter of Syleus and Eretria.

The subjects include mythological themes, with particular reference to the Dionysian world with Dionysus, satyrs and maenads; there are Centaurs fighting against the Lapiths, Nike, Zeus, Hera and also Athena fighting against giants (gigantomachia) but also present in scenes of warriors/heroes leaving for battle or in the athletic setting; There are several depictions that refer to athletic competitions (jumping, running, walking, horse riding, pole vaulting) and to the heroic world (Herakles' labours, Odysseus escaping from Polyphemus' lair).

The figurative repertoire of Italiote red-figure production is also mainly inspired by the Dionysian world, with a preference for genre scenes characterised by the Dionysian procession; another trend is that of depictions of the heroised dead: these are vases intended exclusively for funerary use, underlined in some cases by the fact that they were made on purpose without a base, thus lacking functionality.

Among other materials, some unusual pieces stand out, such as a painted terracotta cube with concave sides of uncertain use, perhaps a children's toy, or an impasto jug with a spout, perhaps to be identified with a feeding trough.

Each period is represented by pieces of excellence, not always and not only from an aesthetic point of view, but as evidence of important phases of passage that determined the birth and development of different cultures; works that contain the knowledge of tradition and elements of the new.