EXHIBITIONS Most of Rome’s museums and galleries have reopened to the public following the covid-19 lockdown. Advance booking is mandatory and the wearing of masks in obligatory, with guests required to pass through a thermo-scanner on arrival. The lack of tourists means that now is a great time to enjoy Rome’s relatively crowd-free museums and exhibitions.
THE TORLONIA MARBLES: COLLECTING MASTERPIECES 25 SEPT-27 JUNE
The legendary Torlonia Collection, considered by many as the world’s most important private collection of ancient marble sculptures, will at long last go on public display in Rome. The much-anticipated exhibition was originally due to launch in April but was postponed due to the covid-19 crisis. Palazzo Caffarelli at the city’s Capitoline Museums will display 96 pieces from the priceless collection of 620 ancient sculptures in the exhibition. The revered “collection of collections”, which comprises marble, bronze and alabaster statues, busts, bas-reliefs and sarcophagi dating to the ancient Roman era – amassed between the 15th- and 19th centuries – will
Palazzo Caffarelli is set to host the Torlonia Marbles.
come to light after being largely hidden away for 70 years. The former Museo Torlonia opened in 1875 on Via della Lungara in Rome’s Trastevere quarter, however in the post-war period
Untitled work by Mimmo Paladino for Back to Nature at Villa Borghese.
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Wanted in Rome
access to the palace’s 77 rooms was granted only occasionally to experts or visiting dignitaries. In 1976 the museum closed definitively, to make way for luxury apartments, and the priceless collection was moved to the basement of another private Roman palace owned by the aristocratic Torlonia family. For more than four decades the collection has been kept in storage, despite attempts by successive governments to persuade the noble family to either sell or display the works in public. Now, thanks to several years of talks between Italy’s culture minister Dario Franceschini and the Torlonia Foundation – the organisation that administers the family’s assets – some of the collection’s most important marble and alabaster works will go on public display in Italy, before travelling abroad. The works have been restored in a
