Regional Museum of Messina

The Museo Interdisciplinare Regionale (MuMe). or Regional Museum of Messina (Italian - Museo regionale interdisciplinare di Messina[1]), is an art museum located on the northern coast of the city of Messina, Sicily, Italy. MuMe illustrates the development of art and culture in Messina from the 12th to the 18th centuries, with outstanding figures such as the renowned artists Andrea della Robbia, Antonello da Messina, Girolamo Alibrandi, Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi), and Polidoro da Caravaggio.

Regional Museum of Messina
LocationViale della Libertà 465
Messina 98121, Sicily, Italy
Coordinates38.216693°N 15.563947°E / 38.216693; 15.563947
DirectorCaterina Di Giacomo
Public transit accessMessina tramway: Museo

Until 2017 it was housed in the former Barbera-Mellinghoff silk-mill, a late 19th century building chosen for it after the 1908 Messina earthquake. Since 2017 it has been housed in a nearby complex designed in the 1970s.

Building

The building housing the museum was originally the Barbera-Mellinghoff spinning-mill, a late 19th-century construction chosen after the great earthquake of 1908 to be the site of the future museum, which was refurbished and finally opened in 1922. Over the years the building has been considerably restructured in order to guarantee the exhibits the best possible conditions for their preservation; the last major work was carried out in the 1980s. A new large complex of buildings near the present site was completed in 2010s.

Collections

The original collections came from the Museo Civico. After the earthquake in 1908 these were expanded by the addition of paintings, sculptures and precious decorative works from damaged or destroyed buildings, thus creating a collection of paintings and sculptures by internationally known and local artists, together with a variety of other objets d'art.

Exhibition

The museum was organized on historicistic principles: each area contains the most important works of the same period, regardless of their typological class.[2]

  • Rooms 1-2 works of the Norman-Swabian period
  • Rooms 3-4 sculptures and paintings of the 15th and 16th century
  • Room 4 "Saint Gregory Polyptych" by Antonello da Messina
  • Rooms 5-8 Paintings, sculptures, funerary monuments and works of decorative art of the 16th century
  • Room 6 "Scylla" by G. A. Montorsoli
  • Rooms 9-11 17th-century art and culture
  • Room 10 Caravaggio works
  • Room 12 18th-century art and culture in Messina
  • Room 13 "The treasury" silversmithry, cribs, church ornaments, pottery[3]

History

Origins

Antonello da Messina, Madonna of the Rosary

The first nucleus for the museum's collection came with various private collections of conservative taste. First opened in 1806 as the Museo civico peloritano by the Reale Accademia Peloritana "to end the despoliation of art", its formation was the idea of its first director Carmelo La Farina. It housed the Alojsio, Arenaprimo, Ciancialo, Grosso-Cacopardo and Carmisino family collections as well as a collection of 14th to 18th century paintings owned by the city's senate, which also part-funded its running costs.

It was initially based on via Rovere, near the Archivio degli atti notarili, before being moved to former university buildings, then (after its massive expansion from the collections of religious corporations suppressed by the 1866 liquidation laws) in 1884 to a building on via Peculio Frumentario and from 1891 to 1908 to the former monastery of San Gregorio.

Earthquake and recovery

The rebuilding plans were cut short by the 1908 earthquake, in which the museum collapsed and some artworks were lost.

Post-war restoration

Pelican lectern of the Renan school, 16th century

In 1977 responsibility for the museum passed to the Regione Siciliana and it took on its present name. In 1984 it was rearranged chronologically.[4]

Antonello da Messina, Madonna and Child and Pieta

Collections

The museum illustrates the course of figurative art in Messina from the 12th to 18th centuries, including paintings, sculptures and decorative art in chronological sequence. Their artists include Antonello da Messina, Mattia Preti, Caravaggio, Girolamo Alibrandi, Vincenzo Catena, Annibale Carracci and Francesco Laurana.

From the precious cathedral treasury come the 'flowering branch' in gold, enamel, pearls and emeralds from a late 17th century goldsmith in the city, though only the early 14th and 17th century Sicilian jewels from the two crowns of the sacred images are displayed.

Paintings

Caravaggio

Antonello da Messina

Colijn de Coter

  • Deposition

Mattia Preti

  • Madonna of the Letter

Mario Minniti

  • The Widow of Nain
  • Beheading of St John the Baptist
  • Circumcision of Christ
  • Madonna of the Rosary

Antonello de Saliba

  • Madonna with Jasmine
  • St Dominica
  • St Catherine of Alexandria

Girolamo Alibrandi

  • Last Judgement

Alessandro Allori

  • Madonna dell'Itria (Our Lady of the Way)

Letterio Subba

The Goddess Calypso Welcoming Telemachus

Cupid and Psyche

Orion, Founder of Messina The Nymphs Lapizia and Fetusa Receiving the First Hare Killed by Orion

Foundation of the Compagnia dei verdi

L'Addolorata

Mary Magdalene at Christ's Feet

Nativity of the Virgin

Embassy of the citizens of Messina to the Virgin Mary

Matthias Stomer

Mucius Scaevola in the Presence of Lars Porsena

Adoration of the Shepherds

Sculptures

Antonello Gagini

  • Aedicula
  • Madonna and Child
  • Madonna of the Angels

Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli

  • Holy Trinity
  • Fontana del Nettuno (original)

Francesco Laurana

  • Madonna and Child

Goro di Gregorio

  • Madonna degli Storpi (Madonna of the Cripples)

Rinaldo Bonanno

  • Marchesi-Barresi funerary monument

Antonello Freri

  • Balsamo monument

Martino Montanini

Victory or Peace and Bravery

References


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