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 of Cultural Policies and Historic Center, and the Musica per Roma Foundation, and 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 sqm inside the Auditorium, permanently houses the 161 works purchased by the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities from the heirs of Maestro Giuseppe Sinopoli.
The 161 works on display are predominantly ceramics covering a chronological range from the 19th to the 3rd century BC, examples of Minoan, Mycenaean, Geometric, Corinthian, Laconian, 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 substantial series of terracottas from the Minoan and Mycenaean age to the Hellenistic period. These are predominantly votive statuettes representing deities and devotees, but also animals (cattle, a dove). Among the statuettes, a fragmentary archaic stone kouros of Cypriot production is also noteworthy.
Of exceptional quality are the pieces attributable to Attic production: works by the main black-figure painters are present, including Lydos, the Lysippides Painter, members of the Nikosthenes circle, and Attic red-figure painters, such as the Syleus Painter and the Eretria Painter.
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 fighting giants (gigantomachy) appear, as well as scenes of warriors/heroes departing for battle or in athletic settings; there are various depictions related to athletic contests (jumping, foot and horse racing, javelin throwing) and the heroic world (labors of Herakles, Odysseus fleeing 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 cortege; another theme is depictions of heroic deceased: these are vases exclusively 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, such as a painted terracotta cube with concave sides of uncertain use, perhaps a children’s toy or a small unglazed 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 of important transitional phases that led to the birth and development of different cultures; works containing the knowledge of tradition and elements of the new.
