The promoting committee of the Civic Museum of the Risorgimento was formed in 1893 following the Risorgimento exhibition organized as part of the 1884 National Exhibition in Turin; among others, it included Carlo Boni, director of the Civic Museum, Luigi Picaglia, Benedetto Malmusi, and Giuseppe Triani, rector of the University and president of the Provincial Council. The first core of objects and documents, essentially the same ones sent to Turin, found a place in a room of the Civic Museums inaugurated in 1894. Due to the growing interest from the citizens which significantly increased the collections, it was expanded and moved several times. The second inauguration took place notably on February 3, 1896, alongside the unveiling of the monument to Nicola Fabrizi; then in 1901 it was transferred to a large room now occupied by the Estense Library; finally, in 1924 it found its permanent location in the two current rooms on the ground floor of the Palace of the Museums.
The collections do not only concern Modena’s participation in the national events of the Risorgimento but also document the preceding Napoleonic era with a glimpse into the situation of the Este duchy and the subsequent wars of the 20th century, in particular the Italo-Turkish war of 1911-12 and the First World War, considered now the last act of Italian Independence. The exhibition setup, prepared between 1924 and 1926 within the museum’s premises, was revised in 1937 by adding a celebratory section on the “Fascist Revolution,” which was removed in the immediate postwar years, and finally modified in the 1960s. Apart from these adjustments, examination of the documents shows that the exhibition project essentially remained on the same line, thus appearing by the early 1990s inadequate both in its educational-museographic approach and because of evident conservation issues affecting almost all displayed materials. In that year, the museum was closed to the public and the materials, placed in crates and transferred to storage, were entrusted to the Civic Art Museum. Currently, a photographic campaign and cataloguing of over 2000 museum artifacts, the library composed of about 1500 volumes, the documentary collection of brochures and autographs, and more than 2500 photographs are underway.
Information about the Civic Museum of the Risorgimento
Viale Vittorio Veneto 5,
41121 Modena (Modena)
0592033100
museo.arte@comune.modena.it
https://www.comune.modena.it/museoarte
Source: MIBACT
