In 2024, the Galleries of Italy in their four locations welcomed 750 thousand visitors

In 2024, Intesa Sanpaolo’s Gallerie d’Italia, between their sites in Milan, Naples, Turin and Vicenza, welcomed 750 thousand visitors. Among them, 100 thousand were students from schools of all levels, for whom the activities are offered free of charge.

The initiatives are part of Progetto Cultura, a multi-year plan conceived by current President Emeritus Giovanni Bazoli. In 2024, the project has resulted in twelve major exhibitions, sixty collateral meetings, and numerous collaborations with national and international cultural institutions. The commitment to art and culture, which has become an identity value of the Group led by Carlo Messina over the years, is part of a massive program that allocates 1.5 billion euros for interventions for Italy by 2027.

The four Gallerie d’Italia museums, created through the transformation of historic palaces owned by the Bank, which were once operational headquarters, and through major architectural restoration work that converted them into spaces dedicated to art and culture. They house part of the more than 35,000 works of art belonging to Intesa Sanpaolo’s collection, 3,500 of which are of special significance.

The first museum in the hub was born in Vicenza in 1999, followed by Naples in 2007 and Milan in 2011. In May 2022, the completion of the hub with the opening of the Turin branch and the transfer of the Naples Galleries to the Via Toledo location consolidated Intesa Sanpaolo’s museum offerings. In parallel with the management of its collections, the Bank is committed to the protection of Italy’s artistic and architectural heritage through Restituzioni, the largest global restoration program. Since 1989, this initiative has restored more than 2,200 artworks to the community, involving Italian Superintendencies, Regional Museum Directorates and autonomous museums, qualified restorers and the main restoration centers in Italy. The 20th Restituzioni exhibition, which will showcase the restored assets, is scheduled to be held in Rome in 2025.

Another innovative aspect concerns the economic management of the collections. Since 2017, Intesa Sanpaolo has been constantly monitoring the economic value of artworks, adopting the fair value methodology. This process, updated through triennial appraisals, has made the Bank the first institution in the world to apply such an advanced approach. Recently, the experience gained was formalized in a Cooperation Protocol signed at the Ministry of the Interior with the Department of Civil Liberties and Immigration. The Group will make its experience available to create a measurement model useful for assessing at market value (fair value) works of art, archival and library assets of 862 churches owned by the Fund for Buildings of Worship (FEC) operating at the Department.

On the international front, the partnership with the National Gallery in London is being intensified. Intesa Sanpaolo will be the main sponsor of the exhibition Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300-1350, scheduled from March 8 to June 22, 2025 in London. Featuring more than one hundred works including paintings, sculpture, goldwork, and textiles, the exhibition will explore the role of Sienese artists such as Duccio, Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and Simone Martini in shaping Western art. The previous exhibition The Last Caravaggio, dedicated to The Martyrdom of St. Ursula, the main work in Intesa Sanpaolo’s collection usually displayed in the museum at the Gallerie d’Italia in Naples, recorded three hundred thousand visitors, ranking as the third most visited exhibition at the National Gallery in the past decade.

Among recent initiatives, Intesa Sanpaolo, together with Compagnia di San Paolo’s 1563 Foundation for Art and Culture and Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Cuneo, acquired 100 percent of the industrial branches of the historic publishing house Umberto Allemandi.

Since 2018, the Culture Project has been integrated into the Bank’s Business Plan. This project, managed by the Art Culture and Historical Assets Department led by Michele Coppola, General Director of the Gallerie d’Italia, has been part of the Sustainability Governance Area since April 2024, headed by Paola Angeletti.

“The year that is coming to an end has been one of results beyond goals and expectations,” said Michele Coppola, Executive Director Art, Culture and Historical Heritage Intesa Sanpaolo and General Director of Gallerie d’Italia. “I’m not only referring to the major exhibition projects carried out in the four Galleries of Italy, which are always original, the result of research and relationships with important institutions, but I’m also thinking of the growing number of visitors and the activities done with schools and fragile audiences, an identity component of Intesa Sanpaolo’s Culture Project. The main satisfaction is the strong consideration with which the Galleries of Italy are known and recognized, as places that belong to their respective communities, bringing contributions that qualify the cultural proposal of the cities and squares that host them. It is also important to emphasize the breadth of initiatives dedicated to our art collections in other venues in Italy and abroad, thanks to a shared work with other entities that places the Bank among the main European interlocutors in defending and spreading the national cultural heritage.”

In 2024, the Galleries of Italy in their four locations welcomed 750 thousand visitors

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