Inaugurated on December 11, 2012, the result of the enhancement agreement signed on June 22, 2012, between the Mibac, Regional Directorate for Cultural and Landscape Heritage of Lazio, Rome Capital Department for Cultural Policies and Historic Center, and the Music Foundation for Rome, implementing what was agreed in the purchase agreement of the collection signed on November 30, 2010.
The Sala del Peduncolo, a space of over 300 sq meters inside the Auditorium, permanently hosts the 161 works purchased by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities from the heirs of Maestro Giuseppe Sinopoli.
The 161 works on display are mainly ceramics covering a chronological range from the 19th to the 3rd century BC, examples of Minoan, Mycenaean, geometric, Corinthian, Laconic, Greco-oriental, Attic black-figure and red-figure, Italiote red-figure, and indigenous ceramic productions of Daunia (Apulia).
Also exhibited are: a marble vase of Cycladic production (3200-2700 BC), Etruscan and Magna Graecian bronze vessels, and a significant series of terracottas from the Minoan and Mycenaean age to the Hellenistic period. These are mainly votive statuettes depicting deities and devotees, but also animals (cattle, a dove). Among the statuettes, a fragmentary archaic kouros of stone, of Cypriot production, is noteworthy.
Of exceptional quality are the exemplars attributable to Attic production: works by major black-figure painters, including Lydos, the Lysippides Painter, members of the Nikosthenes circle, and Attic red-figure painters such as the Syleus Painter and Eretria Painter are present.
The subjects include mythological themes, with particular reference to the Dionysian world with Dionysus, satyrs, and maenads; centaurs fighting Lapiths, Nike, Zeus, Hera, and also Athena in battle against giants (gigantomachy) appear, as well as in scenes of warriors/heroes departing for battle or in an athletic context; various representations refer to athletic contests (jumping, foot and horse racing, javelin throwing) and the heroic world (labors of Herakles, Odysseus fleeing from Polyphemus’ cave).
The Dionysian world also predominantly inspires the figurative repertoire of the Italiote red-figure production, which favors genre scenes characterized by the Dionysian procession; another theme is the portrayals of heroized deceased: these are vases exclusively intended for funerary use, emphasized in some cases by the fact that they were deliberately made without a bottom, thus lacking functionality.
Among the materials, some unusual pieces stand out, including a painted terracotta cube with concave sides of uncertain use, perhaps a children’s toy or a small impasto jug with a spout, possibly identifiable as a feeding bottle.
Each period is represented by pieces of excellence, not always and not only from an aesthetic point of view, but as testimony to important transitional phases that led to the birth and development of different cultures; works that contain the knowledge of tradition and elements of the new.
