The most beautiful works in Naples? They are everywhere but in Naples. On loans from Capodimonte and MANN.

Right now, many of Naples ’ most important works of art can be found anywhere but Naples. This is thanks to the singular lending policies of the city’s two main state museums, the National Museum of Capodimonte and the National Archaeological Museum , which in recent times have distinguished themselves by the nonchalance with which they have been sending their masterpieces around. Please note: this is not meant to stigmatize the normal activity of lending works , which is part of the custom of any museum worth its salt. Works travel, works of art move if there is a well-founded demand, if there are valid reasons for them to travel, and trips are often enriching opportunities for the cities where the works arrive. It is entirely healthy for a museum to lend its artworks. It is, on the other hand, decidedly less healthy to leave a city without a substantial number of its masterpieces, and it is not healthy for a museum to often send around many of its core works, the most recognizable ones, the ones the public expects to find when they visit.

This is what is happening in Naples at the moment. The National Museum of Capodimonte has been talked about in recent days: director Sylvain Bellenger has loaned some 70 key masterpieces to the Louvre, where they will remain for a good six months. A totally nonsensical operation without valid scientific reasons, as I wrote in an article following which there were also those who wanted to defend at all costs an exhibition that emptied Capodimonte of the core of its collection: there was talk that the lent works could travel (and, at least on these pages, no one had thought otherwise: there is no point in arguing about loan authorizations, if they have been granted it is obvious that an authority has determined that the works can travel, then of course zero risk does not exist and among the loaned works there are pieces that rarely move, such as the portrait of Galeazzo Sanvitale by Parmigianino, but that of transportation is not an argument), it has been said that in any case thousands of pieces remain in Capodimonte (yes: but we are not left with the heart of the museum; dozens of works that visitors imagine they will see when they go to Capodimonte have left for France). It has even been said that the operation is to raise awareness of Capodimonte: as if it were really necessary to move the entire core collection to raise awareness of the museum. And, it would come ironically to say, if we bring the best of Capodimonte to Paris, why should a Parisian be motivated to visit the museum? We brought it home to them! And it was also said that at the Louvre the exhibition was opened by the president of the republic. Good: it is therefore a senseless exhibition inaugurated by the president of the republic.

If Bellenger sent the best of his museum to France, the director of the MANN, Paolo Giulierini, opted instead for Spain and China: at this time, two exhibitions, little or not at all publicized in our latitudes, have taken dozens of artifacts from the National Archaeological Museum to Barcelona and Beijing. As for the Spanish exhibition(Pompeya, el último gladiator, through Oct. 15), 150 pieces strong, the museum merely said it was made with artifacts “predominantly” kept in museums. And indeed there is more: few images have circulated (the exhibition has been open since last May 31), but the works that ended up in Catalonia include the so-called Protesilao Warrior and the Wounded Warrior, two works that are anything but minor. And even more significant works ended up at the China Millennium Monument in Beijing, only to find out you need to comb through Chinese information channels: the Chinese embassy’s post shows that they left the MANN, among other works (about seventy in all), the Aphrodite Callipiges, the Leaning Aphrodite, the Pseudo Seneca from the Villa of the Papyri, the fresco of Eros and Narcissus, and the mosaic with the lion and Dionysus. Scrolling through the Chinese museum’s Weibo channel, however, one finds other works, such as the Crouching Aphrodite with Eros, the Giustini-type Asclepius, the statue of Athena, and the loricate statue with head of Lucius Verus. What is surprising is that no communication has come from the MANN about this exhibition (it is titled The Light of Ancient Roman Civilization - Collection of the National Archaeological Museum of Naples and will run until October 8: the reader try googling the title, he will find that no one has mentioned it), from a museum that moreover has a very efficient press office and tends to properly publicize its initiatives. And if it is already difficult to get information about the exhibition itself, let alone to find out what the MANN got in return from China.

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Now, one might think that this is a special moment: by an extraordinary and unrepeatable astral conjuncture, the two main state museums in Naples, exactly in the summer of 2023, will find themselves without a relevant part of the best pieces. Please forgive the tourist who has had the misfortune to happen right now, it is a fortuitous coincidence. Actually, this is not the case: Capodimonte had already embarked on a similar operation in 2020, when it packed up a substantial core of its treasures to ship them to the United States, where they remained on balance for almost a year. And the MANN is known to be a museum that is very generous with loans: last year alone, 160 artifacts flew to Tokyo, the Farnese Tazza was lent to as many as three different exhibitions, in 2018 a hundred pieces had been granted to another exhibition in China, not to mention singular cases such as the Herculaneum Runners lent for a Bottega Veneta fashion show.

In short, it is beginning to become quite difficult to go to Naples and find all the major works in place. This situation, however, cannot help but raise some questions: why is it that only in Naples does it happen that the two main state museums are so loose with loans? Why was Capodimonte allowed a similar (indeed, even broader) operation than the highly criticized 2020? Why is it not possible to know, in a clear way, what the two museums get in return from these operations? Why is it necessary to pass off to the public, and especially to the Neapolitans, operations such as that of Capodimonte in Louvre as great and unrepeatable cultural projects that bring prestige to the city, when in fact it is the exact opposite, since sending the main nucleus of a collection to another museum, and what is more abroad, is, if anything, a symptom of subalternity? Will we in the near future be able to have directors in Naples who are a little less inclined to ship the main works of their museums so frequently?

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