Museum and Museology

MUSEUM AND MUSEOLOGY. - The term "museum" denotes a collection of works of art or of subjects from a particular historical period and milieu, or relics of a scientific character, while the second term, which is of modern coinage, refers to that special activity devoted to the study of the rules for the constitution of a good museum. The word "museum" derives from the practice, in Alexandria in Egypt during the Hellenistic period, of arranging works of art and relics in rooms dedicated for this purpose to the Muses. But the origin of museums can also be traced to the practice of reserving special rooms near temples and sanctuaries to receive the numerous gifts, often of great artistic value, offered to the venerated deities — rooms, however, that were called "treasuries." A true and proper museum, intended also for the admiration of citizens, was the one established by Attalus I at Pergamon, famous for the works of art gathered there from the various conquered lands.

The Middle Ages, while it knew the practice of preserving in the most visited cathedrals and monasteries the ex-votos and the gifts brought by the faithful, was ignorant of the existence of true museums intended to be enjoyed by the public. With the Renaissance, in fifteenth-century Florence, the fervent cultural and aesthetic passion produced the spontaneous transformation of private collections intended for the sole enjoyment of their owners into the first museums, where above all young artists were admitted so that they might have before their eyes the living example of classical art: in this sense the first museum in Europe was the one constituted by the "Medicean Garden," where painters and sculptors freely went to draw from the classical sculptures. Again in Florence, in 1581, B. Buontalenti built for Francesco de' Medici the great building destined for collections of classical and contemporary art, which was the first nucleus of the Florentine galleries.

Above all in Italy, between the 15th and 16th centuries, the vogue of art collections developed: the courts of Mantua, Modena, Milan and Urbino were among the first to set the example. In France, under Francis I, the celebrated "Gallery" of Fontainebleau, where so many Italian artists worked, already had the appearance of a true and proper museum. Later Louis XIV, in the new plan for the Louvre entrusted to Bernini, envisaged a great gallery of statues, and through French influence, during the 18th century in England private individuals and princes went about forming the important collections that would later form the nucleus of the present public collections.

At the center of the history of museums stands the Vatican with its museums, of unique importance in the world, formed at various times but above all owing to the great ideas of Pius VI, who began the first construction of that museum later called the Pio-Clementine. The Vatican Museums are the greatest example of a grandiose arrangement of works, especially of Greek and Roman sculpture, according to neoclassical taste.

The origin of modern museums is largely due to the acquisition of the old private collections by the State, while in countries lacking a humanistic tradition, such as the United States, they were founded through the merit of great cultural institutions or through the work of the governments themselves.

In the second half of the 19th century the major buildings destined to be museums were constituted, and one of the most celebrated examples was that of the State Museum of Berlin, but more recently, with the perfecting of studies in urban planning and architecture, a rational enhancement of the spaces was achieved in relation to the placement and study of works of art. The Brera Gallery in Milan (reorganized in 1920), the Museum of Sculpture in Pisa, the Floridiana Museum in Naples, the Gallery of the Banco di Napoli in the same city are some of the many examples of museums in which modern provisions have been adopted. Before the last war, which caused very grave damage even to the major museums of Europe (creating new and pressing problems), there was constituted, within the Intellectual Cooperation, an offshoot of the League of Nations, an "Office International des Musées" which, through congresses and publications, has profoundly advanced all research relating to museums. - See plate CV.

Valerio Mariani