Seventy masterpieces from the Civic Museums of Rome Capital will go to Japan for six months

About seventy works, including sculptures, paintings, coins, and lithographs from the Civic Museums of Roma Capitale, will go to Japan for the first time, on the occasion of the exhibition Rome, the Eternal City: Masterpieces from the Capitoline Museums’ Collections to be held from September 16 to December 10, 2023 in Tokyo and from January 5 to March 10, 2024 at the Fukuoka Art Museum.

The exhibition dedicated to masterpieces from the Capitoline Museums, which will be staged in Japan’s most visited museum, the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, is the result of a scientific project curated by Capitoline Superintendent Claudio Parisi Presicce and Masue Kato of theRikkyo University of Tokyo, and a collaboration between Roma Capitale, Assessorato alla Cultura, Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali and The Mainichi Newspapers, the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, and the Fukuoka Art Museum, organizers of the exhibition.

Intent of the exhibition project is to give Japanese visitors an opportunity to admire awide selection of the collections of the Roman Civic Museums. It is designed as a tour to discover the bimillennial beauty of the Eternal City. Beginning with the myth of the founding, it passes through the glorious era of ancient Rome and the golden age of the Renaissance and Baroque, reaching the 17th century and beyond, when the city became the most sought-after destination of many international artists, a favorite place of the Grand Tour.

As symbolic evidence of the friendship between the two capitals, twinned since 1996, and of the historic relationship between the Capitoline Museums and Japan, the statue of the Capitoline Venus, only for the Tokyo venue, and Caravaggio’s Saint John the Baptist, only for the Fukuoka venue, will be presented for the first time in Japan.

The exhibition also includes some of the most significant works from the Capitoline collections: a bronze specimen of the famous She-wolf, symbol of the city, now displayed at the entrance to the Palazzo Senatorio, and life-size plaster casts of fragments of the colossal statue of Emperor Constantine. Both works were donated to Roman citizens by Sixtus IV in 1471 and form part of the founding nucleus of the Capitoline Museums.

Also on display will be a significant selection of portraits of Roman emperors from the Collection of Cardinal Alessandro Albani, and paintings from the Pinacoteca Capitolina and the Museum of Rome in Palazzo Braschi, from Tintoretto and Caravaggio to artists of the 19th century.

Through the various sections of the exhibition, therefore, it is intended to trace the history of the Capitoline Museums, from Sixtus IV’s donation to Michelangelo’s project for the square and museum complex, to the increase of the collections by Clement XII with the purchase of the Albani collection, to the establishment of the Pinacoteca by the will of Benedict XIV with the Sacchetti and Pio di Savoia collections.

A special section will be devoted to the relationship that has been established over the centuries between the Capitoline Museums and Japan: in fact, 2023 will mark the 150th anniversary of the Iwakura mission, sent by the Meiji government, to the United States and Europe, with the intention of gathering information on the customs and institutions of Western countries. In Italy, the ambassadorship visited Venice, Florence, Naples and Rome, and here had the opportunity to visit the Capitoline Museums. The experience greatly influenced museum policy and art education in the Japanese country, so much so that in 1876 the Tokyo Technical School of Fine Arts, Japan’s first art school, was established.

Seventy masterpieces from the Civic Museums of Rome Capital will go to Japan for six months

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