On 31 January 2017, the Council Hall was the setting for the signing of a collaboration agreement between the State Hermitage and Reggia di Caserta, Italy.
The bilateral agreement was signed by Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovsky, General Director of the State Hermitage, and Mauro Felicori, Director of the Royal Palace of Caserta (Reggia di Caserta).
The two parties concluded the collaboration agreement with the aim of expanding cultural and scholarly ties (including links as part of the Hermitage–Italy programme) and stimulating research work.
“The agreement envisages a wide spectrum of cooperation between the museums,” Mikhail Piotrovsky stressed. “Our plans include major exhibition projects, one of which will be devoted to the life of the Russian court. There is discussion of the Hermitage’s participation in a large exhibition of 18th- and 19th-century Italian landscape painting, where we could provide canvases by Hackert. In the Hermitage, we are looking forward to an exhibition of works from the Terrae Motus collection, devoted to the tragic events of the 1980 earthquake in Campania, that contains works by world-famous artists, including Robert Mapplethorpe, Tony Cragg, Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg.”
In his turn, Mauro Felicori noted the Hermitage’s great cultural significance and tremendous intellectual potential. “This collaboration will allow us to assimilate the experience of our Hermitage colleagues and learn a lot from them,” the Director of the Royal Palace of Caserta added.
The programme of collaboration envisages extensive joint work in a wide range of fields:
• the exchange of experience between research workers and specialists
• holding scholarly conferences and seminars devoted to questions in the history of art and architecture, museum studies, conservation and restoration
• solving issues connected with the use of innovative systems and technologies in relation to cultural heritage (digitizing, archiving, using enhanced reality technologies and multimedia)
• the study and discussion of new approaches to and forms of disseminating knowledge, including an interdisciplinary view of art and new methods of communication
• the organization of events and exhibitions, including those that follow on from research work and present its results
The Royal Palace of Caserta (Reggia di Caserta in Italian) is the grand former suburban residence of the rulers of Naples in the Campania region of south-west Italy. The complex is considered the last major architectural work in the Italian Baroque style. Reggia di Caserta was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997 and is one of the main tourist sights of Italy.
The museum’s permanent display comprises the Historical Apartments and the Art Gallery that contains 18th- and 19th-century paintings, including a well-known series of pictures by Jacob Philipp Hackert depicting ports of the Kingdom of Naples.
Of great interest, too, is the Terrae Motus collection that was bequeathed to the museum by the gallery owner and collector Lucio Amelio. It contains 72 works by world-renowned artists, including Robert Mapplethorpe, Tony Cragg, Gilbert and George, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Julian Schnabel, Jannis Kounellis, Enzo Cucchi, Mario Merz, Mimmo Paladino, Michelangelo Pistoletto and Emilio Vedova, in whose art the tragic events of the earthquake that devastated Campania and Lucania (Basilicata) in 1980 found reflection.
The signing of the agreement with Reggia di Caserta is one more step in the development of collaboration between the State Hermitage and the museums and cultural institutions of Italy. An important role in coordinating collaboration is being played by the Hermitage–Italy Foundation.
