• home
• Exhibitions

The Torlonia Marbles. Collecting Masterpieces

Curated by Salvatore Settis and Carlo Gasparri

Thanks to a historic agreement between the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities and for Tourism and the Torlonia Foundation, over ninety exceptional marbles from the Torlonia collection will be featured in a major exhibition, "The Torlonia Marbles: Collecting Masterpieces," curated by Salvatore Settis and Carlo Gasparri with the exhibition design by David Chipperfield Architects Milano.

The Torlonia Marbles represent a highly representative and privileged cross-section of the history of ancient art collecting in Rome from the 15th to the 19th century. The sculptures on display are not only distinguished examples of ancient sculpture (busts, reliefs, statues, sarcophagi, and decorative elements), but also reflect a cultural process—the beginnings of antiquities collecting and the transition from private collections to museums—that is of fundamental importance: a process in which Rome and Italy had an undisputed primacy. Therefore, the exhibition traces the formation of the Torlonia collection, and its final of five sections eloquently connects to the adjacent courtyard of the bronzes and the Marcus Aurelius statue in the Capitoline Museums, highlighting the link between the beginnings of private antiquities collecting and the significance of the donation of the Lateran bronzes to the Municipality by Pope Sixtus IV in 1471.

"The Torlonia Marbles: Collecting Masterpieces" inaugurates, with its first stop on the world tour in Rome, the new exhibition venue of the Capitoline Museums of Rome Capital at Villa Caffarelli, restored to its original splendor thanks to the commitment of the Capitoline Superintendency for Cultural Heritage. The choice of venue is linked to the theme of the exhibition, centered on the history of collecting, in which the story of the Torlonia Museum on Lungara Street (founded by Prince Alessandro Torlonia in 1875) is exceptionally relevant. The Torlonia Collection, which includes 620 pieces exceptionally cataloged in 1881, in texts and phototypes, by Pietro Ercole Visconti, is indeed the result of a long series of acquisitions and some significant movements of sculptures among the various family residences. The sculptures displayed in the exhibition have been restored by the Torlonia Foundation with the contribution of Bvlgari and described in a new catalog edited by Electa.

The exhibition marks the first step of the agreement signed on March 15, 2016, between the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities and for Tourism and the Torlonia Foundation and is the result of the institutional agreement signed by the Directorate General for Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape and the Special Superintendency of Rome with the Torlonia Foundation itself. The exhibition is the first stop on a world tour that will conclude with the identification of a permanent exhibition venue for the opening of a new Torlonia Museum.