The National Archaeological Museum in Taranto dedicates an exhibition to Penelope, the queen of Ithaca

From March 8 to July 6, 2025, MArTA-National Archaeological Museum of Taranto will host the exhibition Penelope, curated by Alessandra Sarchi and Claudio Franzoni and produced by Electa. On display for the occasion are fifty works from Italian and foreign museums and foundations: painting, sculpture, cinema and engravings will dialogue with about forty archaeological artifacts from MArTA, some of which come from storage and are exhibited to the public for the first time.

The exhibition is divided into four sections, each exploring aspects related to the figure of Penelope, drawing on Homeric events and later literary tradition.
The first section, The Loom and the Cloth, recounts Penelope’s association with theart of weaving, a symbol of an evolved technology and refined female culture. On display will be the skyphos from the National Etruscan Museum in Chiusi, depicting the queen of Ithaca next to the loom, as well as paintings and engravings from modern times. Weaving is not only a practical art, but an act of memory and repetition, combining manual gesture with poetic narrative.
The second section, Gesture and Posture, delves into the depiction of Penelope in meditative and melancholy attitudes, as in the Campana slab in the Roman National Museum, where she is depicted sitting with her legs crossed and her chin resting on one hand. This gesture makes her enigmatic and reflective, emphasizing her cunning, a quality she shares with Ulysses. The depiction of her husband disguised as a beggar also finds a place in this exhibition core, which causes Penelope’s resistance to recognize him after 20 years of absence.

The third section, The World of Dream and Thalamus, explores Penelope’s dream dimension. Attributed to her in canto XIX of the Odyssey is the distinction between true dreams, which came out of the horn door, and false dreams, which came out of the ivory door, which would later have a very long fortune until Freud’s analysis. On the famous thalamus, immovable from the room and built of olive wood by Odysseus himself, one of the most modern scenes in the entire poem takes place, once Odysseus has returned to Ithaca, as well depicted by Theodoor van Thulden’s seventeenth-century engravings derived from Primaticcio’s lost frescoes in the Gallery of Odysseus at Fontainebleau.
The fourth and final section, The Veil and Modesty, focuses on aidós, a Greek term expressing the sense of modesty and modesty. The veil, a recurring iconographic element, becomes a symbol of shielding oneself before reality, as in Tommaso Piroli’s 18th-century etching from John Flaxman’s drawings.

The dialogue between the exhibition and MArTA’s permanent collection is realized through the display of precious artifacts such as gold-weave textiles (2nd century B.C.), loom weights and a bone spindle from the 1st century B.C., evidence of the textile tradition of ancient Taranto.
The exhibition also pays tribute to Maria Lai, a Sardinian artist known for her works related to the theme of weaving and writing. Her famous looms and sewn books, on display together with Telaio and some of her cloth books, reinterpret the figure of Penelope in a contemporary key, transforming the gesture of weaving into a poetic and conceptual act.

“The date of March 8 is not accidental. The National Archaeological Museum of Taranto, wants to embody the commitment of the world of culture to the challenges of the contemporary and go beyond the undeniable scientific relevance of the works on display, affirming a gender reading that is also valid in the present,” comments MArTA director Stella Falzone. “This is why in the four sections of the exhibition, in addition to the iconography that wants Penelope standing still at her loom and waiting for her husband, shines the defiant Penelope, who keeps at bay more than a hundred men who demand her in marriage, ready not to bend to the reason of state and the fate of widows, and for this intelligent strategist who weaves by day and unravels the canvas by night. With Penelope, the MArTA celebrates women who rebel against stereotypes, prejudices and clichés,” continues director Stella Falzone, "and they do so with the weapons and tools at their disposal, sometimes even only in domestic spaces, with wisdom, patience, determination and passion.

“Penelope has shaped and challenged the feminine ideal for at least 3,000 years and continues to do so today. She is the faithful bride but also the skilled weaver of deception,” explains exhibition curator Alessandra Sarchi. “She is the queen who never leaves her rooms but also the one who single-handedly rules the island for 20 years. She is a dreamer but also the wife who tests her husband.”

“The myths of the ancients are far removed in time,” comments curator Claudio Franzoni, “yet they still manage to intercept our desire to understand the world in which we find ourselves. This is also the case with Penelope. Her story continues to fascinate us because it recounts situations and states of mind that also speak of us, loneliness, pain, disappointment, hope, love.”

The National Archaeological Museum in Taranto dedicates an exhibition to Penelope, the queen of Ithaca

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