Elena De Filippis is the new regional director Museums Piedmont

New regional director of the Piedmont Museums has been appointed: she is Elena De Filippis, who succeeds Enrica Pagella, who was given the position on an interim basis last May.

For the past five years, De Filippis has been director of the regional management body for seven of the nine Piedmontese complexes that make up the UNESCO site of the Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy, and she now assumes the leadership of another articulated entity that includes nine museum venues located between the regional capital and the rest of the territory: Palazzo Carignano and Villa della Regina within the urban boundaries of Turin, the Castle of Moncalieri, the Castle of Agliè and the Abbey of Fruttuaria in the province, the Abbey of Vezzolano in the hills of Asti, the Castle of Racconigi and the Castle of Serralunga d’Alba in the Cuneo area, and the Fort of Gavi in the province of Alessandria close to the Ligurian Apennines.

A graduate and specialist in medieval and modern art history, Elena De Filippis has more than 30 years of career in the field of conservation, research and enhancement of cultural heritage behind her. Her professional journey began in the 1980s, when she became director of the Sacro Monte di Orta Management Body, then directed the Sacro Monte di Varallo Management Body and, then, took the reins in 2015 of the Piedmontese Sacri Monti Management Body established by regional law. He has also promoted and coordinated numerous enhancement and restoration projects, taking over the direction of works on numerous works sites, such as Gaudenzio Ferrari’s frescoes in the Chapel of the Arrival of the Magi at Sacro Monte in Varallo. He developed an articulated plan for the routine maintenance and programmed conservation of the Sacro Monte of Varallo, active for nearly two decades, presented at scientific conferences and now the focus of an INTERREG Italy-Switzerland project in which the Cultural Heritage Office of the Canton of Ticino is participating, interested in taking it as a reference for the Swiss Sacri Monti and the Canton’s cultural heritage. He has since collaborated with academic institutions in Piedmont, Lombardy and more recently in Italian-speaking Switzerland to promote the heritage they manage. He also founded and served as editorial and scientific director of the journal Sacri Monti. Magazine of art, conservation, landscape and spirituality of the Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy.

“My inauguration comes at a long-awaited time for the museum sector,” he said, “undoubtedly a phase that is meant to be one of hope and renewed momentum. Although the activities for the management of museums continue behind closed doors, our mission cannot disregard the interaction with the public, which is one of its main components, as demonstrated in recent months by the great work of all museum institutions to maintain feedback with visitors.”

Piedmont’s Regional Museums Directorate includes museum realities that, although important, are located in smaller towns and requireappropriate integration between local needs, the value of collective identity and inclusion in tourist flows. “From this point of view,” De Filippis continues, “my new assignment results in continuity with the experience gained for the Sacred Mounts, within a body that includes cultural assets that are similar to each other, but at the same time distinguished by their own specificities, as well as by belonging to different territorial communities. Moreover, it was an activity that allowed me to operate in a particular dimension, that of UNESCO recognition, which is also shared by the Piedmont Regional Museums Directorate to which five of the Savoy residences of the UNESCO site inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1997 are entrusted. While these similarities provide useful prerequisites for the performance of my new duties, in some ways a new adventure opens up: the Regional Directorate is in charge not only of UNESCO heritage, but also of other different realities, specifically two ancient abbeys and unique structures such as the Castle of Serralunga d’Alba and the Fort of Gavi. It is an opportunity for knowledge that promises to be stimulating on several fronts, from administrative and management dynamics to aspects of study and scientific investigation, not without opportunities for confrontation, including significant ones, with themes and issues that intersect different points of the journey so far. It is a challenge to which my interests in the field of cultural heritage enhancement and conservation have led me.”

Elena De Filippis is the new regional director Museums Piedmont

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