Parma, opens the New Wing of the Archaeological Museum at the Pilotta, with ceramics and Egyptian section

A new itinerary in Parma’s Pilotta Complex, theNew Wing of the Archaeological Museum, has opened to the public since Dec. 22. The part of the building built at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries thus unveils works never before seen: in particular, the Pilotta public will be able to visit the Ceramics Room dominated by a majestic coffered ceiling, concealed from view in the 1950s by a huge concrete floor and now meticulously restored, and the Egyptian Rooms, created in imitation of the underground tombs of the pharaohs. The New Wing thus enriches the itinerary among the Parma duchy’s antiquarian collections, dedicated to acquisitions of antiquities from around the world and beyond, which occurred between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries.

The Ala Nuova is the result of three parallel construction sites: the creation of a new ceramics room, the creation of a section entirely devoted to the duchy’s Egyptian collections, collected especially under the dukedom of Maria Luigia, and the restoration of the relevant facades designed by the court architect, one of the most important of European neoclassicism, Ennemond Alexandre Petitot, on the Cortile della Cavallerizza. In the Ceramics Room, the restoration and upgrading of the mighty, elegant wooden coffered ceiling, and the restoration and repositioning of the long wooden table on which the Trionfo da Tavola was displayed, found in one of the National Gallery’s storerooms, have made it possible to return the Museum’s valuable Greek, Etruscan, Italic and Roman collections to the public in an appropriate exhibition context. The ceramics, purchased in the 19th century for the Ducal Museum by Museum Director Lopez to endow the museum with a sampling of Greek and Italic ceramic productions, are displayed according to an arrangement that places them individually or in small groups, in chronological order, within glass cases resting on the table, echoing the original conformation of the room and freely inspired, aesthetically and conceptually, by the famous Etruscan Room made in 1855 by Palagio Palagi for King Charles Albert of Savoy at Racconigi Castle.

The four wall showcases located on the north wall display a remarkable sequence of bronzes (a helmet, two jugs, a cista, a Winged Victory, and two small sphinxes), the Luigine collections of Etruscan-Italic bronzes, terracotta ex-votos and Etruscan mirrors, and a Chiusi cinerary urn in terracotta, in an arrangement designed to emphasize typological characteristics, the themes covered in the depictions, and the techniques of decoration. In the center of the south wall of the Hall, a fifth display case has been arranged to house the bas-relief, bowl bottom, depicting the deity Ocean. Four statues are placed between the five windows facing the Lungoparma, while on the opposite side, between the two doors, are placed a head and five busts; statues and busts, as well as the Roman-era lions placed at the museum’s entrance, have recently undergone cleaning and restoration funded by the Lions Club Parma Host.

Continuing along the path, one reaches the Egyptian Room: the important artifacts of the Egyptian collection gathered here are accompanied by an informative apparatus that allows one to understand their history, meaning and events, all in an environment designed to evoke the burial chambers from which these millennia-old artifacts came. Passing through a corridor with a lowered ceiling that alludes to the path into the underbelly of the earth that characterizes the necropolis of Luxor, visitors will find themselves inside two rooms where, in specially designed showcases and in niches, they will be able to admire the grave goods, the beautiful sarcophagi and the mummy from the Parma collection (finds of which restoration work conducted on site by specialists is planned soon, in the presence of visitors).

As for individual documents and artifacts, the new Egyptian Section opens with a number of works (texts and plates) by Egyptologist Ippolito Rosellini, a young colleague of Jean-François Champollion during the Franco-Tuscan expedition to Egypt in 1828, financed by King Charles X of France and Grand Duke Leopold of Tuscany. The expedition touched all the great sites of Pharaonic Egypt and produced an enormous amount of documents, copies of hieroglyphic texts, drawings, and chests of antiquities. Rossellini first and Champollion’s heirs later published the account of that expedition, accompanying it with large, sometimes watercolor plates, and the first fascicles of the work were donated to the nascent library of the Museum of Antiquities by Duchess Maria Luigia and are now displayed alongside the Amenothes papyrus, acquired by the Museum in 1830.

The redevelopment of the interior spaces of this New Wing is matched by the renovation and restoration of the exterior elevations, in this case of one of the most important neoclassical facades in Italy as well as the garden it overlooks, carved out of the ruins of the former ducal cavalry.

The opening of the New Wing of the Archaeological Museum represents a new chapter in the restoration and refurbishment of the Pilotta, which began in 2017 under the direction of Simone Verde(read our recent interview here): between 2018 and 2021, some 10 new sections have been opened, including the Hall of Triumph, dedicated to the decorative arts; the Farnese Wing, dedicated to art in Parma in the 16th century; the West Wing, dedicated to Italian painting from its origins to the 1500s; and the Rocchetta with the Ottocento and Mito di Correggio itinerary. The refurbishment of the Pilotta will conclude in 2022 with a major exhibition on the Farnese collections to crown four years of work: it will be a review that will bring back to Parma numerous masterpieces once in the Farnese collections and now in museums around the world.

The work will continue: after the Christmas opening of the New Wing, January will see the opening of the new Bodonian Museum, located in the heart of an entirely new wing of the Palatine Library, designed by Guido Canali and achieved through the closure and redevelopment of a spectacular three-aisled portico that had hitherto been extremely dilapidated; February will see the inauguration of the completely renovated West Wing and North Wing, which will house a new section on Flemish painting, whose works, about fifty in number, have largely undergone restoration and will be related to the Mannerist art of the duchy, as well as the rooms devoted to Italian and European painting of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; and finally, at the end of March, the opening of the exhibition on the Farnese collections, which will mark the final phase leading to the general inauguration of the Nuova Pilotta.

Parma, opens the New Wing of the Archaeological Museum at the Pilotta, with ceramics and Egyptian section

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