To Control and To Educate:  

Didactic Italian Museography, 
1920-1960 
 
 
 
 
 
Clair Hopper 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Honors Thesis in Art History 
Advisor: Fabiola López-Durán 
May 20, 2019   

 
 Hopper 1 
 
In a city with as rich a heritage as Rome, cultural artifacts ought to be 
accessible to residents and visitors alike in a way that is systematic, 
univocal, and understandable. Rome’s historical, artistic, and intellectual 
1
traditions, that is, should not be reserved for the chosen few.  
 
This passage was written in 2010, the opening line to Rita Bernini’s 

brief history of Roman museums from the late 19​th​ century to the present. 

Her frustration in this article seems to extend across the entire time period 

she studies: why, she wonders, are Italian museums so often confusing and 

inaccessible when they should be clear communicators to the public? She 

calls for a new system that unifies museums, clarifies their voice, and 

orients them towards the public. She urges Roman museographers to 

“offer a clear and single vision to the visitor who…comes to the Eternal 

City in order to understand how the modern metropolis and capital of 
2
Italy lives with its own glorious past”. Museums, she argues, should 

consider their visitor’s perspective, should educate their publics instead of 

simply displaying lifeless objects.  

Bernini, in 2010, was not the first to voice this concern. In fact, 

Italian museums have had a complex relationship with their visitors since 

the early 20​th​ century, when the country’s fascist government discovered 

the communicative power of the museum and began designing shows that 

manipulated visitors for propagandistic ends. The exhibits and museums 

designed under fascism were architecturally innovative, less than 

1
Bernini, “Rome and Its Museums,” 77. 
2
Bernini, 88. 
 Hopper 2 
 
historically accurate, and carefully calibrated to immerse visitors in their 

governmentally-determined messages. From entrance to exit, viewers' 

emotions and intellects were controlled and manipulated. But despite this 

strict control, fascist shows were hugely successful, attracting masses of 

visitors from across Italy and the world. 

After fascism marched into war and war disintegrated into 

destruction, Italian museums were at a turning point. No longer content to 

be controlled by the government, postwar museographers set out to create 

accessible, democratic, educational museums. They read and wrote 

theories of art pedagogy, and developed rich public programming to help 

everyday visitors understand art history. But they did not totally forgo the 

legacy of fascist museography. Like their predecessors in the 1920s and 

30s, they designed immersive, innovative shows calibrated to visitors’ 

experiences. They appropriated the successful strategies of the fascist era, 

but cleansed them of their propagandistic purpose by using them to 

educate the public. 

Literature Review & Relevance of Study 

I position my research between art history, museum studies, and the 

study of cultural heritage in modern Italy. Most importantly, I analyze 

museography: as defined by the International Council of Museums, the 

practical techniques which enable museum practice, especially 

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3
conservation, restoration, and exhibition. Bringing together archival 

research, on-site interviews with education directors of Roman museums, 

historical research, and critical theory on Italian modernism with an 

emphasis on museography, my thesis provides an intergenerational 

understanding of modern Italian museums and their relationship to the 

public at large. 

My research began with a series of interviews with education 

directors of prominent Roman museums. These interviews, conducted in 

June 2018, included the education staff of the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte 

Moderna and the Palazzo delle Esposizioni as well as several other 

4
museums. Though these interviews focused on museums’ current 

programs, they were indispensable orientations to the mindsets, histories, 

and challenges of Italian museographers. I also gained firsthand, intimate 

knowledge of these museums’ gallery spaces, which proved crucial in my 

study of their architecture and exhibition designs. Also fascinating was 

their engagement with the story I tell in this research. Emanuela Garrone, 

Director of Education at the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, was very 

proud of her museum's leading role during postwar reconstruction, to be 

discussed in the second half of this paper. However, not all institutions 

engaged with their mid-century pasts. During my visit to the Palazzo delle 

3
Desvallées and International Council of Museums, ​Museology​, 40. 
4
Other museums visited include Centrale Montemartini, MAXXI, and the 
Museo Nazionale Romano. Thanks to the support of the Mary Ellen Hale 
Lovett fellowship. 
 Hopper 4 
 
Esposizioni in particular, I was struck by the immersive, architecturally 

innovative education spaces of the museum, but did not uncover any 

connection to fascism until months later, while delving deeper into the 

institution’s history. The central role the museum played in multimedia 

propaganda projects was fully obscured. 

Beyond these interviews, the most important supports for my 

analysis were digital archives, providing photo evidence of exhibitions and 

museum installations that remain physically inaccessible (due to the 

passage of time, as with the temporary exhibits discussed, or geographic 

barriers, as with the Museo di Castelvecchio). The Archivio Storico Luce 

Cinecittà contains extensive photo documentation of the exhibits of the 

1920s and 30s, and the Archivio Digitale della Galleria Nazionale and 

Archivio Carlo Scarpa all contain photographic documentation of the 

postwar exhibits and museums I analyze in the second half of this paper. 

Through these archives and others, I was able to assess how exhibits’ 

design influenced their function and meaning. The photos and broadcasts 

I consulted not only showed the exhibits’ designs and floor plans, but they 

also showed visitors moving through the space and interacting with the 

architecture. The role of these sources in my analysis of visitor-museum 

interactions cannot be overstated. Without direct physical analysis of the 

spaces discussed, the visitor perspective is largely erased from the 

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historical narrative. Access to these archives allowed me to construct a 

narrative of museography as it impacted the public.  

The historiography consulted for this project covered two main 

groups: first, that of fascist cultural policy, including propaganda and 

archaeology; second, that of postwar Italian architecture and conservation, 

and art education theory. The first group, concerning fascist cultural 

policy, is supported by ample secondary studies. In particular, those 

concerning Mussolini’s fascination with ​Romanità—

​ the defining aspect of 

“Romanity” through which he claimed a direct succession from Augustan 

Rome—provided epistemological frameworks of archaeology, art history, 

and museography that resonate throughout this study. Joshua Arthur's 

volume ​Excavating Modernity: The Roman Past in Fascist Italy ​was 

particularly useful, arguing that the fascist museographical excercises 

cannot be understood outside the discussion of ​Romanità​ and Italian 

perceived cultural superiority. Several studies of the ​Mostra della 

Rivoluzione Fascista​ and ​Mostra Augustea della Romanità​ exist, which 

contextualize them within fascist politics at large (i.e., the onset of war and 
5
colonial exploits in Ethiopia). ​ They also provide important statistical 

information about the shows’ reception and success, which allows for 

further analysis of their efficacy and function. 

5
Victor Plahte Tschudi, “Plaster Empires”; de Luise, “Le Arti and 
Intervention in the Arts”; Arthurs, ​Excavating Modernity: The Roman Past in 
Fascist Italy​; Schnapp, “Fascism’s Museum in Motion”; Cosmo, “Defining 
Self by Collecting the Other.” 
 Hopper 6 
 
The second historiographical group, concerning postwar Italian 

architecture and conservation, is seldom written about in English. Rare are 

secondary studies of this period that synthesize conservation, architecture, 

and museography. However, I was able to connect several key nodes of 

knowledge and fit them into a larger narrative. First, the work and theory 

of Cesare Brandi, postwar conservationist who pioneered a holistic 

approach to architecture and art preservation, provided a conceptual 

overview of postwar architecture. His seminal work ​Teoria del Restauro 

argued that architecture is inseparable from its cultural biography, a 

concept that was taken to heart by the postwar museographers I discuss 

here, especially Carlo Scarpa. Scarpa has been treated by a number of 

scholars, especially Phillippe Duboÿ in his edited volume ​L’Art d’Exposer,​  

6
and architect Richard Murphy’s studies of the Museo di Castelvecchio.  

His architectural work represents the application of Brandi’s conservation 

and restoration theory. A close colleague of Scarpa’s was Palma Bucarelli, 

director of the Galleria Nazionale, who took a radically democratic 

approach to art and exhibitions and transformed her museum into an 

institution of public education. Analyzed as part of a whole, these 

individuals and their work reveal a pedagogical shift in the Italian 

museographical landscape.  

6
Duboÿ's volume was consulted in both its French and Italian 
publications, under the titles ​L'Art d'Exposer​ and ​L'Arte di Esporre​. 
 Hopper 7 
 
Importantly, none of the sources I have consulted mention a direct 

connection between fascist and postwar museography. For a multitude of 

reasons, not least of which the political environment after the end of 

World War II, to announce an affinity for fascist practice would have been 

anathema to the democratic generation of the 1950s and 60s. They were 

outspokenly, proudly antifascist, and worked hard to erase the negative 

impacts of fascism on their museums and communities. However, in the 

following analysis I argue that despite their political differences, these 

individuals were not completely isolated from their predecessors. Fascist 

exhibitions and museums created a strong precedent of designing for 

museum visitors, and ensuring that people of all backgrounds—not only 

academics—could benefit and learn. Postwar museographers all witnessed 

this development; they did not exist separately from that history. Rather, 

they extended it and transformed it. Without government bureaucrats 

dictating content and delivery of exhibitions and programming, postwar 

museographers were free to present new and diverse content to their 

visitors, but packaged it in immersive architectural displays informed by 

the exhibitions of the 1920s and 30s. They built on the successes of fascist 

museography to create a practice of educating the public. 

 Hopper 8 
 

The Fascist Museum: Understanding and 

Controlling the Visitor 
From 1927 to 1942, the Italian fascist regime was determined to use 

museums as social educators. Party-affiliated museum professionals 

pioneered an effective modus operandi: by utilizing the arts to appeal to 

visitors’ emotions, museums could create a feeling of transcendent unity 

and reinforce the popular appeal of fascism. Government officials 

provided direction and funding; strategic publicity provided freedom and 

notoriety. The fascist exhibition was immersive, didactic, and innovative, 

and its museographical impact lasted for generations. 

Fascism, the Arts, and Museums 

Italian fascism, on the whole, had a very close relationship with the 

arts. Fascists knew that art, as a voice of the people and effective 

communicator of power, was a crucial tool for their regime. They aimed 
7
to use the arts to create a lasting presence of fascism in the Italian mind.  

Giuseppe Bottai, Minister of National Education, succinctly defined the 

role of the arts in the fascist machine: “art has an essential value and is part 

of a nation’s personality; administered by the state, organizing and 

guiding its people….it is of political necessity that the state ask of the 

artistic energies of the nation, a militant participation in its political 

7
Schnapp, “Fascism’s Museum in Motion.” 
 Hopper 9 
 
8
action”. In other words, fascism relied heavily on the arts to convince the 

general populace of its value as a political movement. 

The state, in turn, took it upon itself to “[guarantee] the aesthetic 

quality of artistic works…[to teach] and [control] the morality of artistic 

9
works”. It had an active role in supporting artists and presenting artistic 

works to the general public, as did the German fascist government at the 

same time. However, unlike the German fascists did with such efforts as 

the Degenerate Art show, Italian fascists did not seek to create a 

homogenous canon of “accepted” artists by censoring or destroying 

artworks. Rather than seeking out and silencing artists who did not align 

with the regime, the Italian government exercised its influence by 

choosing to actively promote art that spoke to an “Italian” experience. For 

example, of contemporary artists, those working in the Novecento (mixing 

modernist aesthetics with classical referents) and Futurist (glorifying the 

rise of modern technology in Italy) styles received far and away the most 
10
official attention. This attention could take many forms: scholarly art 

journals; contemporary art contests; academies of art history and 

archaeology administered by party officials; powerful government 

bureaus dedicated to art, art education, and museums; and legislation 

8
Qtd. in de Luise, “Le Arti and Intervention in the Arts,” 124. 
9
Bottai, qtd. in de Luise, 124. 
10
Lorente, “Il Peso Del Passato.” 
 Hopper 10 
 
11
mandating the decoration of all Italian buildings. Each of these entities 

was a way for the government to regulate not only artistic production, but 

also the presentation of that art to the public. 

The government began to experiment with museums as a form of 

propaganda quite early in its tenure. Starting in the 1920s, the government 

sponsored exhibitions that emphasized transcendent national feeling by 

directly correlating fascist Italy with Imperial Rome. It is no surprise that 

the government turned to museums to disperse its message; the country’s 

long and storied history of art production, preservation, and display 

engendered a strong museum presence by the early 20​th​ century. In fact, 

Italy was the site of the densest growth of museums of modern art before 

the second world war. It is important to note that many of the museums 

founded during this time had turbulent or short lifetimes, sometimes 

lacking the funds to make acquisitions or remain open to the public. 

However, in most cases, the opening of a new museum was a civic event, a 

grand statement of a city’s modernity and alliance with the arts—the 

12
statement perhaps even more important than the museum’s functioning.  

11
de Luise, “Le Arti and Intervention in the Arts”; Arthurs, ​Excavating 
Modernity: The Roman Past in Fascist Italy​. Art journals included ​Le Arti​ and 
similar publications; contests like the Premio Bergamo and Premio 
Cremona; Academies involved with the government most notably include 
the Istituto Centrale del Restauro and Istituto di Studi Romani; a 
noteworthy law was the "2% For Art" law, mandating that all non-industrial 
buildings dedicate 2% of their budget to decoration. 
12
Lorente, “Il Peso Del Passato,” 215. 
 Hopper 11 
 
Fascist authorities would come to capitalize on museums’ stature, opening 

more and more shows with greater and greater public visibility.  

The first major fascist museographical effort focused on ancient 

archaeology. Archaeology, especially that of Rome’s ancient past, received 

a huge amount of official attention during Mussolini’s rule. As many 

scholars have discussed​ and

​
will recur throughout this study, ancient 

Rome was a particular fascination of Mussolini’s, and a focus of his 

ideology. Time and again, he attempted to frame his fascist Italy as the 

rebirth of Augustus’s Roman empire. Through this historical equation, he 

thought, he would legitimize his young regime and attract Italians to his 
13
cause.   

In 1911 (before Mussolini came to power), an exhibition titled ​Mostra 

Archeologica​ had debuted a collection of plaster casts of Roman artifacts to 

prove the military and technological might of the Roman empire. This 

show was poorly received and not publicly known—the few who attended 
14
criticized it for its dry, scholastic, inaccessible tone. In 1927, 

party-affiliated archaeologist Giulio Quirino Giglioli spearheaded the 

opening of the Museo dell'Impero Romano, a museum dedicated to the 

glory of the empire that exhibited, as its core collection, this same group 

13
Arthurs, ​Excavating Modernity: The Roman Past in Fascist Italy;​ Victor 
Plahte Tschudi, “Plaster Empires”; Strong, “‘Romanità’ throughout the 
Ages”; Kallis, “‘Framing’ Romanità.” 
14
Arthurs, ​Excavating Modernity: The Roman Past in Fascist Italy,​ 95. 
 Hopper 12 
 
15
of casts and reproductions. Called
​
the most fascist of the interwar 

archaeologists by some scholars, Giglioli was involved in at least three 

government divisions and almost all of the government’s archaeological 

projects, including the excavation of the Imperial Fora and relocation of 
16
the Altar of Augustus. As a government agent, his goal was to present 

archaeological sites and artifacts in a beneficial light to fascism and 

Romanità​. 

Giglioli’s goal was to present a more engaging and readable version 

of the ​Mostra Archeologica,​ so that it proved its point while remaining 

approachable, “without ever tiring the visitor, who should be a cultured 

17
man, but not a specialist”. To Giglioli, the reproductions and plaster casts 

used in the ​Mostra Archeologica​ were an opportunity, a way to make dusty 

fragments from an unfamiliar society fresh and new-looking. As with the 

Mostra Archeologica​, however, the Museo dell’Impero Romano was harshly 

criticized—both for its academic tone and for its heavy reliance on 
18
reproductions of artifacts rather than originals. Giglioli intended the 

reproductions as an engaging, readable way to represent the ancient past, 

15
Cosmo, “Defining Self by Collecting the Other”; Arthurs, ​Excavating 
Modernity: The Roman Past in Fascist Italy​. 
16
Arthurs, ​Excavating Modernity: The Roman Past in Fascist Italy,​ 97–98. 
Arthurs cites Daniele Manacorda and Renato Tamassia as holding this 
view. 
17
Giglioli, qtd. in Arthurs, 99. 
18
Arthurs, 100. 
 Hopper 13 
 
but within the context of a traditional museum, they read as cheap 

substitutes for real artifacts. 

Shortly after, in 1930, government-affiliated museum professionals 

took a key risk: designing an entire museum to appeal to and manipulate 

visitors' emotions. The Museo di Roma was founded by Antonio Muñoz, 

another archaeologist paid by the government. The government had 

already initiated many major projects to permanently alter the fabric of 

the city, including excavating the Imperial Fora to retrieve important 

Augustan relics, widening streets to facilitate troop movement, and 

removing monuments to place in museums. This show was meant both to 

preserve memories of the old Rome, and to cultivate popular attachment 

to the land and its customs. It displayed far more ethnographic 

artifacts—items of everyday life and home from past generations—than 

fine arts, in a concerted effort to pull the heartstrings of visitors and 

cultivate shared feeling for the Rome they knew and loved. In Muñoz’s 

words, the museum was  

An urn for our sweet nostalgia, the oasis where we Romans can go to 
renew our spirits, among the dear little things of the life that once 
was…It will be a museum all our own, which might elicit sympathetic 
smiles from the foreigners who believe themselves more civilized 
than us, and who look down at the rather provincial customs of our 
old city…but for us, it is like part of our homes, like the memento 
cabinet of a family that holds Grandfather’s tobacco-box and 
19
Mother’s mass-book.  
 

19
Qtd. in Arthurs, 87. 
 Hopper 14 
 
Clearly, the Museo di Roma had a function that was more than 

purely documentary. As Muñoz described, it was meant to remind 

Romans of their shared heritage, to reiterate how special their Italian 

identity was. Historical city plans revealed the physical layout of the city 

over centuries, alongside Piranesi prints and Romantic paintings that 

spoke to Rome's lasting artistic influence. Reconstructions of everything 

from street carriages to entire taverns made for engaging, explorable 

spaces. Performances enlivened the museum: one display involved a 

performance of traditional dances, and one contained an actor playing the 

20
role of public scribe, at work in a piazza. The museum’s creators 

intended it not to be a set collection of items, but a new kind of dynamic 

entity that constantly adapted to the changing cultural landscape. 

Furthermore, the display was not that of a traditional museum; in its 

original iteration, the Museo di Roma's collection was installed as if part of 

a private collection in an aristocratic house, with objects crowded into 

21
lavish rooms. Because it spoke directly to visitors, arousing their 

emotions more than a survey of archeological remains would, this 

museum was much more engaging than the ​Mostra Archeologica​ or Museo 

dell’Impero Romano. 

As the government aged, it organized and opened more and more 

exhibitions, each intended to communicate the strength of Italian culture. 

20
Arthurs, 86. 
21
Arthurs, 86–87. 
 Hopper 15 
 
A sampling of titles reveals the wide scope and pointed message of these 

shows: ​Esposizione dell’Aeronautica Italiana (​ 1933)​, Mostra Autarchica​ ​del 

Minerale Italiano​ (1939), ​Leonardo e la Superiorità del Genio Italico​ (1939). 

These shows, like the examples discussed above, were not purely 

documentary. By extolling the virtues of everything from Italian 

aeronautics to Italian minerals to Italian genius, they shared the single goal 

of proving fascist Italy’s superiority. Furthermore, each show’s design was 

immersive and avant-garde, not displays of objects but multi-sensory 

22
guided tours through the concept of Italian superiority. Two 

museographical experiments from this list stand above the rest: the 1932 

Mostra della Rivoluzione Fascista​ and the 1937 ​Mostra Augustea della Romanità​. 

These shows’ designers maintained the goals of cultivating popular 

attachment to country and regime, but did so with radically experiential 

format and display and with unprecedented success. These new shows 

were exacting tools of propaganda for fascist unity, using innovative and 

immersive museum spaces to directly connect visitors to the museum. 

The Mostra della Rivoluzione Fascista  

The show that sparked the government’s most ambitious 

museographical exploits was the ​Mostra della Rivoluzione Fascista​ (MRF), a 

1932 show honoring the ten-year anniversary of the fascist march on 

Rome. Its director was Dino Alfieri, the head of the Ministry of Press and 

22
Schnapp, “The Spectacle Factory.” 
 Hopper 16 
 
23
Propaganda. It narrated the history of fascism in a sensory collision of 

rationalist architecture, futurist collage, and neoclassic symbolic 

references. This was a far cry from the more traditional historical shows 

like the ​Mostra Archeologica.​ This was a rule-breaking, eye-catching public 

event, documented heavily from installation to close by official news 

authorities. It was designed as a temporary show at the Palazzo delle 

Esposizioni on Via Nazionale, but its grand success led Mussolini to 
24
declare it permanent in 1933.  

The show in its original iteration was a long, mazelike experience, 

occupying the entirety of the Palazzo delle Esposizioni from the exterior 

to the two large floors of galleries. [Fig. 1] The exhibit began with a 

towering temporary façade imposed on the iconic Palazzo, and led visitors 

around a looping, pre-set path. On the first floor were 15 historical rooms 

narrating the seizure of the Fiume and march on Rome.  

In the center of these were 4 rooms that formed the crux of the 

show: a Hall of Honor to Mussolini, the Gallery of the Fasci (smaller fascist 

groups around Italy), a Mussolini Room, and a Sacrarium to the Martyrs of 

the Fascist Revolution. 

Upstairs on the second floor, visitors found a 5,000-book library, a 

room detailing the activities of fascist groups outside Italy, and 3 rooms 

representing the National Fascist Party’s accomplishments since taking 

23
Mainetti, “The Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution,” 266. 
24
Schnapp, “Fascism’s Museum in Motion.” 
 Hopper 17 
 
25
power. Even from this brief description of the floor plan, the central 

theme of the show is clearly visible. The actual political feats of the fascist 

party were tacked onto the end of the show, with such diverse and 

complex issues as labor, agriculture, transport, industry, and commerce all 

made to share 3 rooms. Conversely, the mythic founding of the 

government and devotion to Mussolini and fascist martyrs received ample 

26
space and attention, 19 rooms in total. It was these 19 rooms that made 

up the most important and most impactful bulk of the show.  

The show's impact was due largely to its design, which was carefully 

formulated to arouse the emotions of visitors, forcing them into 

communion with fascist revolutionaries by simulating the environment 

and feeling of a revolutionary demonstration. To do so, the designers 

destabilized the object displays, floor plan, lighting, and sound of the 

exhibit. Futurist, rationalist, and Novecento artists and architects such as 

Gerardo Dottori, Mario Sironi, and Adalberto Libera collaborated to 

27
reinvent the museum space and display tactics. From entrance to exit, 

the entire display was suffused with collage, mural, art installation, and 

monumental architecture meant to connect visitors with the display, and 

create a powerful shared experience between all who entered.  

25
Schnapp. 
26
Schnapp. 
27
Mainetti, “The Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution,” 266–67. 
 Hopper 18 
 
The temporary façade erected for the duration of the show at the 

Palazzo delle Esposizioni enveloped the already monumental beaux-arts 

Palazzo in a sleek, modernist, red and black orthogonal reimagining of a 

classical triumphal arch. Instead of doric or ionic columns, it sported 

20-meter-tall riveted tin fasces, an ancient Roman symbol for total 

governmental authority. Flanking these were 6-meter-tall red Xs, 

representing both the cancellation of the pre-fascist past and the 10 year 

anniversary date. Atop the building was 1.6-meter-tall red text: MOSTRA 

DELLA RIVOLUZIONE FASCISTA. As a visitor walked into the hulking 

façade and entrance arcade, they would see the exhibit’s own dedicated 
28
honor guard, usually squadristi, the citizen militia. [Fig. 2, 3]  

This façade was a strategic and effective communicator of the show’s 

message. Gone was the antiquated beaux-arts palazzo, the old Via 

Nazionale, the old Rome. The iconic space was transformed into a fascist 

version of itself—all of the party’s symbols, colors, and signs proved it, 

alongside living soldiers and guns. It was both a symbol of the past violent 

takeover of Rome, and a threat to anyone who challenged that authority. 

The show’s organizers were quick to capitalize on that symbolic power, 

using the façade as a logo of sorts to publicize the show. In his study of the 

MRF, art historian Jeffrey Schnapp suggested that the façade “would have 

28
Schnapp, “Fascism’s Museum in Motion”; Ricotti, “Roma. 
L’inaugurazione della mostra della Rivoluzione Fascista.” 
 Hopper 19 
 
29
been almost as recognizable as that of il Duce” —it was printed on 

postcards, photographs, posters, and stickers in the hundreds of 

thousands. Not only would Romans receive the façade’s message if they 

walked down Via Nazionale, one of the busiest streets in the city, but they 

would have seen its icon in the mail, on city walls, in train stations, and in 

countless other places.  

Inside the building, the first fifteen rooms were a chaotic 

multimedia installation that plunged the visitor into the march on Rome 

and the fascist takeover. Every part of the design was meant to destabilize 

the space, almost to the point of being unreadable. The exhibit’s floor plan 

reveals dummy walls shooting out from asymmetrical rooms, ceilings 

dropping and rising unpredictably, and sculptural reliefs jutting out at odd 

angles. Each time the visitor entered a new room, they had to reorient 

themselves to the irregular space. Not only the space, but also the object 

displays, were intentionally volatile. [Fig. 4, 5, 6] 

Historian Marla Stone describes how part of the curation process 

was publicly sourced: Alfieri sent calls for artifacts out to government 

offices, libraries, archives, museums, and private collectors to assemble a 

group of artifacts and documents that were emotionally significant to tge 

30
wider community. The very existence of these documents was a form of 

29
Schnapp, “Fascism’s Museum in Motion,” 91. 
30
Stone, “The Anatomy of a Propaganda Event: The Mostra Della 
Rivoluzione Fascista,” 32. 
 Hopper 20 
 
emotional manipulation, using direct public appeals to create buy-in to 

the show and its message.  

These historical documents were folded into art installations, 

double-height collaged murals in the futurist style. It was almost 

31
impossible to discern what was frame and what was object. In room "O", 

chronicling the year 1922, Giuseppe Terragni blended photos and 

documents with a cacophony of symbols: a flock of Roman/fascist salutes, 

an ocean of spectators in photo collage, and three-dimensional turbines 

also overlaid with photo collage. [Fig. 7] The “Sala del 1919”, installed by 

Marcello Nizzoli, provides a well-documented microcosm of the show’s 

design approach at large. Inside cases were documents strewn in all 

directions, sometimes overlapping with each other and with their 

accompanying texts. [Fig. 8] At some points, the walls themselves jutted 

out over the display cases, with documents and texts crammed into every 

nook of the irregular space. [Fig. 9]. Above eye level, towering over the 

visitors, was an unpredictable tapestry of Futurist painting, battle cries (“A 

NOI!”), sculpture, and photo collage. False portals and sculptural elements 

jutted out from the walls. Every inch of the space was encrusted in art and 

document, including the ceiling. [Fig. 10, 11] There was no separation 
32
between document, artwork, and interpretation.​  

31
Schnapp, “Fascism’s Museum in Motion.” 
32
Mainetti, “The Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution.” 
 Hopper 21 
 
This destabilization of the gallery space had two major effects. First, 

the feeling of constant movement and spatial reassessment evoked the 

same chaos present at the actual march on Rome. By reproducing this 

feeling in the many visitors who saw the MRF, the design manufactured a 

shared experience and emotion not only between all who visited, but also 

between those visitors and the revolutionaries of the early years. Visitors 

were encouraged to suspend their disbelief and build an emotional, 

conceptual bridge between themselves and the earlier generation of 

fascists. [Fig. 12] 

Secondly, the collage tactic for document and image display poses a 

serious historical problem. In a traditional gallery display, artifacts are 

displayed separately from any interpretive aids, be they text, image, or 

other media. Often, a case or frame physically separates the artifact itself, 

making it clear to visitors what is artifact and what is curatorial 

interpretation. The MRF had no such separation. Because 

two-dimensional historical artifacts like documents and images were 

folded into collages made of fabricated images and words, fact and fiction 

blurred into each other.​ ​It did not matter which part of the display was art 

and which was artifact; all that mattered was the experience, the emotion 

that connected the viewer to fascism. Though the show was advertised as a 

historical exhibition, the approach was in fact deeply ahistorical, ignoring 

 Hopper 22 
 
all context of primary sources and instead delivering governmentally 

determined narratives and Futurist interpretations of history. 

After those fifteen chaotic rooms, the visitor entered the four central 

rooms of the first floor, and the tone shifted dramatically. Gone was any 

irregular, disorienting energy; in its wake was calm, towering, cool 

monumentality. The Hall of Honor, Gallery of the Fasci, Mussolini Room, 

and Sacrarium to the Martyrs of the Fascist Revolution are much better 

understood as art installations and monuments than the historical rooms. 

Aside from a recreation of Mussolini’s office and brief biography [Fig. 13], 

there was very little insinuation that any history was on display; instead, 

these rooms were artistic monuments to honor important Italian fascists.  

For example: The Hall of Honor displayed only a blocky modernist 

effigy of Mussolini carved into a stone wall. Aside this effigy were key 

words evoking the Duce and his regime: “DUX”, “ITALIA”, “DUCE”, 
33
“ORDER AUTHORITY JUSTICE”, “BELIEVE OBEY FIGHT”. In the 

Sacrarium, a riveted tin cross loomed tall in the center of the room, 

emblazoned with the phrase “PER LA PATRIA IMMORTALE”. It was 

encircled by legions of martyrs’ names, punctuated with a repeating 

“PRESENTE! PRESENTE!”, referring both to the martyrs and to the 

visitors who came to honor them. As the visitor looked on, the fascist 

Schnapp, “Fascism’s Museum in Motion,” 94; Mainetti, “The Exhibition 

33

of the Fascist Revolution,” 269–73. 

 Hopper 23 
 
34
anthem ​La Giovinezza​ played from overhead speakers. [Fig. 14] In 

contrast to the chaotic collages of the previous rooms, These monuments 

were geometric, regular, and modern. Their message was clear: from the 

turmoil of the past arose fascism, the Duce; the solution to war, 

uncertainty, and tension in the modern world.  

The significance of the MRF lies not only in its novel displays and 

heavy use of emotional manipulation. It was one of the first museum 

exhibits that the government treated like a media event. The show was 

extremely well-advertised, with a large amount of funding for its 

execution and promotion sourced from the government. The more 

people who saw the show, the more personal connections to fascism 

would be formed. Consequently, promotion was crucial to the success of 

the show. It was open to the public until 11 PM every day of its full run at 

the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, including Sundays, Easter, and Christmas. 

The government promoted it to youth organizations, state offices, and 

labor unions. It even offered discounted train fares so that out-of-town 

35
visitors could visit the exhibit in Rome. The hundreds of thousands of 

brochures, posters, and stickers bearing the icon of the temporary façade 

were distributed in Rome and beyond. The investment into advertising 

and marketing paid off, just as the show's directors intended. 

34
Schnapp, “Fascism’s Museum in Motion,” 95. 
35
Schnapp, 89. 
 Hopper 24 
 
Total revenues of the MRF in its year at the Palazzo delle 

Esposizioni were over 5 million Italian Liras. It sold 250,000 catalogs and 

attracted 3,701,818 visitors, or over 5,000 per day. By Jeffrey Schnapp’s 

36
count, this equals roughly 1 in 11 Italians. Attendance was exceedingly 

high, but it was not the only measure of devotion. Schnapp puts it well: 

The exhibition gave rise to sometimes orchestrated but often 

spontaneous outpourings of public sentiment reflected in the daily 
newspapers…and in private memoirs and letters. Veterans’ 
organizations vied for the privilege of serving in the exhibition’s 
honor guard. Commemorative books and poems were composed. 
Visitors walked and bicycled from many hundreds of miles away. In 
short, the transformed Palazzo rapidly evolved into a kind of Saint 
Peter’s of fascism: a site of pilgrimage for fascists from throughout 
Italy and Europe, a shrine in which the revolutionary values of 
37
fascism were revived.  
 
Not only were thousands of visitors seeing the show daily, but they 

were moved enough to publish their accounts of the show, create poetry 

in its honor, and travel at great expense to Rome for the pleasure of seeing 

it. Archives corroborate Schnapp’s description: they overflow with photos 

of school groups, foreign emissaries, labor groups, veterans’ associations, 

and more, crowding onto the monumental steps of the Palazzo or in front 
38
of the colossal collaged walls of the exhibit. In function, the MRF was not 

36
By my calculation, Italy’s population in 1932 is roughly equivalent to the 
2018 populations of Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama 
combined. Even ignoring the advances in transportation since 1932, the 
thought of 1 in 11 people out of all of these states attending one exhibit is 
quite astounding. Figures from World Population Review and European 
Historical Statistics. 
37
Schnapp. 89. 
38
See especially the Archivio Digitale Istituto Luce Cinecittà and Archivi 
Alinari. 
 Hopper 25 
 
a history exhibit but a marketing tool, a powerful site for visitors to buy 

into fascism’s promises of community. 

On the official closing date in 1934, rather than permanently 

dismantle this wildly popular exhibit, the MRF’s organizers elected to 

move it into the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna. It reopened there in 

1937, the year of Augustus’s Bimillenary celebration, as part of many 

museological and artistic celebrations of the emperor’s birth. Another 

temporary façade was designed for the Galleria, with a monumental 

“DUCE” hung over the main entry arcade.​ ​[Fig. 15] In 1942, the show was 

redesigned to suit the new space. However, each successive iteration 

became less experimental, less oriented to the senses and emotions of the 

visitor, and more conventional in its display tactics. [Fig. 16] This affected 

the show’s potency, as did the extended run: by late 1940, its director 

wrote that it lacked the same life it had had on Via Nazionale, and daily 

attendance wavered around 8-10 visitors—a steep drop from 5,000 in its 
39
original site.  

I include the MRF in my discussion of visitor-oriented didactic 

museography because it redefined the relationship of the fascist museum 

with the public. It was designed to be a social instrument, a way to 

convince Italians that they were united only under fascism. Visitors were, 

importantly, not meant to critically analyze any one document in the 

39
Antonio Pinca, qtd. in Schnapp, “Fascism’s Museum in Motion,” 96. 
 Hopper 26 
 
display, only to undergo the larger experience and feel a deep spiritual 

connection to it. In the words of Margherita Sarfatti, high-ranking fascist 

art critic and patron and biographer of Mussolini, the MRF was not history 
40
on display but “history in action”, felt rather than observed.   

The reason for the show’s striking effectiveness to this end was due 

partially to its wide audience base, but also to its innovative design. Never 

before had Italians seen a museum exhibit so radical in its orientation 

towards their own senses and emotions. Earlier exhibits like the ​Mostra 

Archeologica​ and Museo dell’Impero Romano had relied on conventional 

displays of objects and scholarly texts, rendering them inaccessible to 

many everyday visitors. These were most beneficial to scholars, who had 

experience reading texts and interpreting objects. The MRF, by contrast, 

resonated with all visitors because it relied on their emotions, not their 

abilities to read or interpret texts. Any visitor, no matter their literacy, 

means, or education, could walk into the halls of the MRF and share a 

similar experience. The museum was no longer a space only for 

specialists, but for the common people as well.  

The MRF also set a precedent for government-sponsored shows. 

After the MRF, the government knew that museum shows, if given funds 

and careful attention, could be extremely effective public communicators. 

The overwhelming success of the exhibition made this lesson a lasting 

40
Sarfatti, 1933, qtd. in Schnapp, 88–89. 
 Hopper 27 
 
one, and informed decisions in the next major government-sponsored 

show: the ​Mostra Augustea della Romanità​.  

The Mostra Augustea della Romanità 

In 1937, the ​Mostra Augustea della Romanità​ (MAR) opened at the 

Palazzo delle Esposizioni in honor of the bimillenary of Augustus’s birth, 

alongside many other commemorative events. It was advertised as a 

historical show to educate visitors about the Roman Empire under 

Augustus, but more than anything else, it drew parallels between 

Augustus’s Rome and Mussolini’s Italy—even to the point of implying that 

the latter was a reincarnation of the former. It was the crown jewel of 

fascist shows, “a mobilization of state resources and scholarly energies 

41
without parallel, and recognized as such by contemporaries”. Its curator, 

once again, was Giulio Quirino Giglioli. The primary source of funding 
42
was a grant of 4,000,000 Italian Liras​ ​from Mussolini’s personal funds.  

Based on the success of the MRF, its organizers believed in its power to 

convince visitors of fascism’s historical legitimacy.  

As with the MRF, the MAR was advertised by a huge campaign to 

attract visitors from within and beyond Italy. Discounted train fares and 

entrance fees were common; even though attendance for MAR was very 

41
Arthurs, ​Excavating Modernity: The Roman Past in Fascist Italy​, 92. 
Arthurs's statistical analysis of the show's impact was unique among the 
studies I consulted, and enabled me to take a more functional approach to 
the efficacy and impact of the show. Jeffrey Schnapp's study of the MRF 
performed a similar role. 
42
Arthurs, 102. 
 Hopper 28 
 
high, low ticket revenues were in fact a substantial loss for the 

government, as most visitors did not pay full price. Giglioli estimated that 

though the value of a ticket was L4, the average patron paid between L2 

and L3 to enter, up to a quarter of visitors attended for free, and a large 

43
number of visitors attended as part of a discounted group tour. This 

balance sheet suggests that to the show’s organizers, the full 

communication of the show’s message was more important than its fiscal 

success.  

175,000 posters for the exhibit were printed and distributed, as well 

as almost 800,000 pamphlets for schools, universities, and train stations. 

Press packages were sent to foreign publishers, travel agencies, consulates, 

and scholarly institutions abroad. The government even held a 

44
competition for the best newspaper article written about the show. The 

more publicity, the more visitors would see the show, and the more 

opportunity it would have to impart its message.  

The advertising campaign also reveals much about the intention 

behind the exhibit. A radio campaign promoted the show to all Italians, 

not just scholars:  

Do you want to have a direct idea of the great public works carried 
out during the Empire of Ancient Rome? Do you want to learn about 
the road system of Ancient Rome and the ways of traveling in those 
days? You don’t need to be an archaeologist to be interested in the 
Mostra Augustea….It will interest the general public because it 
presents the clearest synthesis of Roman life, in culture, art, 

43
Arthurs, 123. 
44
Arthurs, 105. 
 Hopper 29 
 
industry, agriculture, et cetera. Whatever your background, 
45
wherever your interests lie, you will find things of great interest.  
 
This campaign aimed at the widest selection of visitors possible, and 

clearly presented the show as educational (“do you want to learn…?”). It was 

a show for everyone, not just specialists. In the words of one 

contemporary observer, “from the soldier to the engineer, from the 

scholar to the doctor, from the artisan to the merchant, from the musician 
46
to the farmer”, any Italian could learn something from the MAR.  

The design of the MAR facilitated its didactic purposes. Once again, it 

began on Via Nazionale: another temporary façade was designed for the 

Palazzo delle Esposizioni, a much more restrained, simple, yet still 

modern and geometric reimagining of a classical triumphal arch. This 

façade was white, to hearken back to ancient monuments in white marble.

47
[Fig. 17] Not only did the façade resemble a triumphal arch, but 

Mussolini treated it like one. A television broadcast of the exhibit’s closing 

ceremony show legions of schoolchildren singing ​La Giovinezza​ on the 

steps of the Palazzo, and crowds of people on the opposite side of the 

street awaiting Mussolini. When he arrives in a black car, he is greeted 

48
with fascist salutes, horn fanfare, and loud cries of “Duce! Duce! Duce!”  

45
Arthurs, 105. 
46
Arthurs, 115. 
47
Victor Plahte Tschudi, “Plaster Empires.” 
48
Gemmiti and Franchina, “La cerimonia di chiusura, presenziata da 
Mussolini, della ‘Mostra augustea della romanità’ a Palazzo dell’ 
Esposizione.” 
 Hopper 30 
 
In this broadcasted performance, Mussolini enters the exhibition just as 

Augustus would have entered his own triumphal arches. Even without 

ever visiting the exhibit, any Italian watching this broadcast would have 

received its message: Mussolini was the new emperor of Rome, the 

inheritor of Augustus’s legacy.  

Other television broadcasts show many of the show’s rooms, 

providing gratuitous shots of Mussolini and Giglioli in front of famous 

ancient monuments. They also show the exhibit’s main subject area, the 
49
military and scientific prowess of Augustus’s Rome. I will not analyze the 

content of the show here; rather, I will focus more on how the show 
50
communicated its message and left a lasting impact on its viewers.    

The MAR was, intentionally and transparently, a didactic show. 

Cronaca Prealpina​, a Varese newspaper, congratulated the show for being 

“not a museum, a mute and cold display, but a living and dynamic guide”.
51
Alongside the many monuments and artifacts on display was the same 

collection of reproductions used in the ​Mostra Archeologica​ and Museo 

dell’Impero Romano. However, remembering that these earlier exhibits 

49
Gemmiti, “La Mostra Augustea della Romanità.” 
50
Many authors, including Plahte Tschudi, Arthurs, Strong, and Kallis 
have done excellent analyses of the exhibit’s content. 
51
Qtd. in Arthurs, ​Excavating Modernity: The Roman Past in Fascist Italy,​ 120. 
Given the advertised government contest for best newspaper article about 
the MAR, and the widespread censorship of the press during the regime, 
perspectives from the press should be treated with utmost skepticism. 
However, their emphasis on approachability and dynamism reveals, if 
nothing else, that the officially determined goal of the show was an 
educational function. 
 Hopper 31 
 
were criticized for being dry and inaccessible, the designers of MAR 

utilized the same tactic as those of the MRF: unconventional display. 

Objects were integrated with large displays, didactic texts, photos, and 

illustrated accompaniments to maintain visitors’ interest.  

For example, in one room, an imperial timeline was integrated into a 

life-size reproduction of a triumphal arch, with small models of arches 

standing in front and a map of the empire to the side. [Fig. 18] In a more 

traditional show, a fragment of the original arch may have been displayed, 

perhaps with a brief didactic text next to it. In this display, reproductions 

allowed for a holistic, multi-scale perspective of the content, much easier 

for visitors to digest and understand.  

In one room, the designers constructed a faux Roman villa so that 

visitors could stroll through colonnades as ancient Romans did; in 

another, the interior of an ancient temple was recreated at scale. [Fig. 19, 

20] Dispersed throughout the exhibit were large panels of quotations from 

ancient philosophers, and Augustus, alongside others from Mussolini. [Fig. 

21, 22] Small plaster reproductions of monuments were displayed next to 

real artifacts, without cases, inviting visitors’ analysis and touch. [Fig. 23] 

Important events like military conflicts were explained with scale models 
52
and diagrams. [Fig. 24] Rather than displaying objects in isolation, 

alienated and out of use, the MAR allowed visitors to experience artifacts 

52
Gemmiti, “La Mostra Augustea della Romanità.” 
 Hopper 32 
 
and history themselves. It was an immersive, phenomenological learning 

experience. 

In an article about the MAR in ​Architettura, ​the journal of the fascist 

architects' syndicate, Giglioli described the show's design as integral to its 

impact and educational function:  

...an original concept in which the monuments, accompanied by 

maps, photographs, epigraphs, explanatory texts, should speak to the 
mind and to the heart, and give the visitor a definitive and 
unforgettable impression of the historical moment….no monotony, 
no limits on the most ardent of modern tastes; but the constant and 
53
fundamental necessity is to place each artifact in its proper place.  
 
In other words, without the seamless integration of multiple media 

into the gallery space, the MAR would lose its evocative power. Though 

this display was less radical than that of the MRF, it used similarly 

unconventional, multimedia tactics to make itself readable and 

approachable. It was designed to appeal to every visitor.  

These new display tactics were crucial to the success of the show. 

Because of the heavy use of reproductions and plaster casts in the place of 

artifacts, visitors had the ability to touch the objects on display without 

damaging them. Extremely pro-fascist daily paper ​Il Tevere​ recounted a 

story of visually impaired visitors entering the exhibit: “Examining a 

life-sized model of an archaic plow, one of them [the visitors] exclaimed 

that ‘this is just like the one that some peasants still use today…’ ‘Certainly,’ 

replied an older one nearby. ‘How could it be otherwise? The plow is 

53
Giglioli, “La Mostra Augustea Della Romanità.” 
 Hopper 33 
 
54
eternal.’” [Fig. 25] In this instance, if the newspaper's account is to be 

believed, the curators’ choice to include reproductions allowed visitors 

who might otherwise be alienated from the museum to meaningfully 

interact with the exhibit, and tangibly connect modern Italy with ancient 

Rome.  

The show was widely regarded for its educational value. Yale 

historian Michael Rostovtzeff was deeply impacted by his visit. In a 1938 

letter, he wrote:  

I was able to study [the objects] in their setting, with beautiful copies 
and under the guidance of experts….perhaps I enjoyed the exhibition 
more as a teacher of Roman history. The Mostra is truly a splendid 
course on Roman history, such that I would never be able to give to 
55
my students.  
 

He recognized it for its educational value, and was impressed 

because it went beyond a standard museum show. Giglioli, as curator and 

director, was particularly proud of the discounted tours for elementary 

school children, proudly recounting tours in which students “ran through 

the rooms with so much attention, so much love, so much joy. And how 

many of them…returned by themselves and saw everything again, and 

54
Qtd. in Arthurs, ​Excavating Modernity: The Roman Past in Fascist Italy,​  
103–4. I was unable to corroborate this account from an extremely biased 
source. ​Il Tevere​ was founded by Mussolini in 1924, and was one of the 
most incendiary anti-semitic, pro-fascist, pro-Nazi papers in the country. 
Its editor-in-chief, on to found the even more racist journal ​Difesa della 
Razza​ in 1938, subsidized by the Ministry of Popular Culture and fanning 
the flames of racial hatred in the latter years of the regime. However, even 
if this account is falsified, it reveals a common goal among fascist entities 
to present the MAR as a new kind of learning environment. 
55
Qtd. in Arthurs, ​Excavating Modernity: The Roman Past in Fascist Italy,​ 121. 
 Hopper 34 
 
explained themselves the various pieces to their parents (often poor 
56
peasants) and younger brothers!” For him, the MAR was successful 

because it sparked the interest of its young visitors, engaging them enough 

to teach their families how similar Mussolini and Augustus were.  

This exhibit’s true danger lay in its mingling of educational 

overtones and consistent disregard for historical truth. The show did not 

present historical information accurately; rather, it presented an 

interpretation of the past that aligned perfectly with Mussolini’s vision for 

Italy. Art historian Victor Plahte Tschudi argues that in the context of the 

show, the reproductions were physical representations of this 

interpretation of the past. In contrast to actual artifacts—broken, old, and 

unfamiliar—the 3,200 plaster models in MAR were new, clean, and full of 

modern possibility. Where actual artifacts might have had chips, breaks, 

and missing pieces, these casts were filled in with aesthetically pleasing 

inventions, rendering them whole and readable. Without evidence of 

these objects’ long histories, they became blank white canvases for the 

future of Rome to be projected onto; in Plahte Tschudi’s words, “not relics, 

57
but prototypes”. This function was beyond aesthetic. By inventing 

archaeological artifacts, curators could easily present an image of ancient 

Rome that mirrored fascist Italy, aligning with Mussolini’s vision of 

Romanità.​ They were presented as historical documents, and indeed their 

56
Qtd. in Arthurs, 123. 
57
Victor Plahte Tschudi, “Plaster Empires,” 390. 
 Hopper 35 
 
varied scale and open display made them approachable learning sites for 

many visitors. But they were far from accurate teachers. In actuality, the 

exhibit’s visitor-friendly design enabled it to tell archaeological and 

historical falsehoods, all with the aim of legitimizing Mussolini’s claim to 

Augustan heritage. 

MAR was a logical, monumental extension of preexisting fascist 

museography. It was a conjunction of official dogma, archaeology, and 

public communication. The platform of the museum gave Mussolini’s 

fascist-approved vision of history legitimacy and public appeal. From 

entrance to exit it immersed visitors in the imperial vision, ensuring that 

they understood the supposed affinities between Mussolini and Augustus. 

Like the MRF, it was massively successful, and reinforced the 

government’s preoccupation with controlling the arts. Artistic and 

museographical experiments would continue throughout the regime, with 

less and less success.  

The End of the Regime: E42 and conceptual failure 

The huge public profiles and successes of the MRF and MAR set a 

precedent for fascist cultural policy. These shows proved that innovative 

museography—the more eye-catching and visitor-oriented, the 

better—was an effective way to sell fascism, to cultivate a shared sense of 

58
Italianità​ that served the government well in its propagandistic mission.  

58
Cosmo, “Defining Self by Collecting the Other.” 
 Hopper 36 
 
As the government clung ever tighter to its authority in the face of 

impending war, it continued to pursue the communicative power of the 

exhibition. The parallel declines of the ​Esposizione Universale di Roma​ and 

Mostra della Rivoluzione Fascista​ demonstrate the crumbling of the regime 

itself. 

In the final years of the regime, Italian fascism adopted a more 

explicitly racist, colonialist tone. Pressurized by the onset of the second 

world war, and emboldened by a bloody campaign in Ethiopia, the regime 

59
clung ever tighter to its power, including its museum propaganda. The 

failed 1942 ​Esposizione Universale di Roma​ (also known as EUR or E42) was a 

striking example of this ethos. It was a massive world’s fair of sorts, 

constructed ​ex novo​ in Rome, designed to equate the colonial, military 

Italy of 1942 with the colonial military of ancient Rome; a glorified, 

inflated version of the MAR. 

E42 was such an important initiative that, unlike many other 

world’s fairs which were designed to be temporary, it was intended to be a 

permanent expansion of urban Rome, an entirely new district punctuated 

by museums and monumental exhibit pavilions. However, this vision 

never came to realization. Construction halted at various points during the 

war, and the district stood, partially complete, lifeless and accumulating 

rubble. It was only in the 1950s that fascist loyalist Virgilio Testa became 

59
Cosmo; Arthurs, ​Excavating Modernity: The Roman Past in Fascist Italy​. 
 Hopper 37 
 
EUR’s first district commissioner, and spearheaded the efforts to clear it of 
60
rubble. Today it still stands as a functioning part of the city, albeit one 

populated by monuments to a dead regime.  

The MRF, too, illustrates the decline of the regime and its 

ideologies. After Mussolini declared the show permanent in 1933, it closed 

at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni. It reopened during Augustus’s bimillenary 

in 1937 at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, attracting steadily 

shrinking crowds. When the fascist government retreated from Rome to 

Salò in 1943, the MRF came with it. Its extensive library was abandoned in 

place, but the rest of the exhibit was shipped to a Salò museum, where it 

would lay, still in boxes, for two more years, until allied forces captured 
61
the city.  

After the War: Museums as Educators 

After the trauma of World War II, museum professionals in the 

1940s and 50s felt a need to move beyond the fascist conception of the 

museum, which used approachable, immersive display to create 

experiential propaganda. This “new generation” defined themselves in 

explicit contradistinction to their fascist predecessors, but they utilized 

many of the same strategies for their own ends.  

60
Cosmo, “Defining Self by Collecting the Other.” Cosmo discusses the 
colonial implications of EUR's urban expansion, connecting it with the 
government's desire to impose its vision on the countryside and beyond. 
61
Schnapp, “The Spectacle Factory,” 88. 
 Hopper 38 
 
Enjoying the freedom and distinction accorded museums by the 

massive, innovative shows of the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, museum directors 

and avant-garde architects created immersive, didactic, and innovative 

shows. Though they retained this public-facing attitude, however, postwar 

exhibits sought to create knowledge in the public, not to propagate a single 

centrally-determined message.. Like their fascist predecessors, they 

achieved this end by innovating new display tactics that effectively 

engaged visitors. Unlike their predecessors, they also began to offer rich 

programming to educate visitors about art and culture from across the 

globe. Recognizing both the efficacy of the fascist museum and its 

implication in the propaganda of a corrupt regime, postwar 

museographers appropriated its strengths in service of a democratic, 

educational museum. 

The “new generation” of museographers was a network of young 

professionals spanning Italy: most notably, Fernanda Wittgens and 

Constantino Baroni in Milan, Cesare Gnudi in Bologna, Mario Salmi in 

Florence, Caterina Marcenaro in Genova, Licisco Maganato and Carlo 

62
Scarpa in Verona, and Palma Bucarelli in Rome. Among these, I will 

address a few of the most important case studies in their context, carried 

out by Carlo Scarpa, perhaps the most celebrated architect and 

museographer of postwar Italy, and Palma Bucarelli, art historian and 

62
Falguières, “L’arte della mostra. Per un’altra genealogia del ‘white cube,’” 
18. 
 Hopper 39 
 
63
young firebrand director of the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna.  

Carlo Scarpa’s exhibit design and museum renovation practice created 

museum experiences equally as immersive, attractive, and didactic as 

those of the MAR and MRF, but did so in the service of art education and 

visual literacy. Palma Bucarelli took the didactic shift in another direction, 

pioneering a program of public education that revolutionized the role of 

her museum in its community. Both actors galvanized the role of 

museums in their communities, Bucarelli by transforming her museum 

into a kind of school, and Scarpa by designing museum spaces for visitors’ 

learning and open conversation. Both demonstrate how museographers 

after the war worked to convert their museums into truly educational 
64
institutions.   

Engaging the Public: Palma Bucarelli at the Galleria 

Nazionale d’Arte Moderna 
During the twenty years preceding the war, art and museums lived 

in the service of fascism. In order to move the arts community forward, 

the postwar generation set out to restructure the museum field. Palma 

Bucarelli took this mission seriously. As a national museum in the capital 

63
Nearly all scholarly and press discussions of Bucarelli mention her 
famous beauty and willpower. I will not discuss her beauty as it does not 
affect her professional accomplishments, but her willpower and 
determination certainly did. 
64
This time period 1945-1969 is seldom written about, and archival 
barriers prevented my access to many important primary sources, 
including Giulio Carlo Argan’s 1949 article “Il Museo Come Scuola”, 
published in the journal ​Comunità​, no longer in circulation.  
 Hopper 40 
 
of the country, the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna (GNAM) has had a 

long and complex history with the government, especially in the fascist 

era. Bucarelli, however, had a history of defying the government in order 

to protect and promote the arts. One year after Italy entered the war, in 

1941, Bucarelli’s supervisor had just left the museum for the Ministry of 
65
War. Newly empowered and feeling that the government was not taking 

enough action to protect cultural heritage, Bucarelli instigated a network 

of clandestine expeditions to transport works from vulnerable locations 

66
inside Rome to safer locations in the outskirts. After the war, Bucarelli 

did not stop pushing the limits of the art world. Appointed director of 

GNAM in 1942, she developed a ground-breakingly rich program of art 

education inside the museum. 

Even today, Bucarelli is widely acknowledged as the woman who 

67
brought public art educational programming to Rome. Emanuela 

Garrone, current director of GNAM’s education department, credits 

Bucarelli for the formation of her institution’s programming and mindset.

68
Her formation of explicitly educational activities was very much 

indebted to the postwar climate of liberation, morality, freedom, and 

65
Ursino, “Tempi Di Guerra: Dell’carteggio e Dell’attività Di Palma 
Bucarelli in Difesa Delle Opere d’arte Della Galleria Nazionale d’Arte 
Moderna,” 15. 
66
Ursino, 16–17. 
67
Amaturo, “Il Pubblico di Palma Bucarelli: Oltre la Didattica.” 
68
Director as of 2018. Garrone, Attività Didattica at the Galleria Nazionale 
d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea. 
 Hopper 41 
 
looking forward to the possibilities of a new age. However, it also looked 

backward. The most influential shows from the fascist decades were 

designed to build community by way of consensus, highlighting visitors’ 

connections to each other via their shared allegiance to fascism. They set a 

strong precedent: museums and the art inside them were supposed to 

bring people together and create community cohesion.  

Bucarelli wanted to sustain this community function of the 

museum, but broadened its scope from the limited, 

government-sponsored content of the 1920s and 30s. During her 33-year 

tenure as director of GNAM, she instituted a nearly constant, dynamic 

program of community-oriented programming and activities designed to 

educate the public about art and art appreciation. She began this work 

before the war was even over, in 1944, when hers was the first Roman 

museum to reopen to the public. Two years later, GNAM opened its first 

major show since before the war: the ​Mostra Didattica di Riproduzioni di 

Pittura Moderna.​ This was a very successful exhibition of the most 

important and popular modern European paintings of the past century, 

spanning the continent and featuring art movements from impressionism 

to surrealism. It attracted artists and visitors from across Italy to the 

GNAM. Because of the particular constraints of Italy’s art world in 1946, it 
 Hopper 42 
 
was an unusual show: nearly all of the paintings on display were 
69
reproductions, not originals.   

Foreign museums and collectors were very hesitant to lend works 

70
to Italian museums after the war. Using reproductions allowed Bucarelli 

and Venturi to display works that they could not afford or that would not 

travel to Italy. In organizing this show, Bucarelli and her co-curator, the 

renowned collector and art historian Lionello Venturi, aimed to “catch” 

Italian museum visitors up, so to speak—in other words, familiarize them 

with the important art historical events that had occurred outside Italy 

during fascist rule, when museums were a function of the government and 
71
foreign art was rarely displayed.   

The ​Mostra Didattica​ consisted of 40 large and 52 small 

reproductions, all in color and in exceptionally high quality for the time. 
72
There were also a few originals from Venturi’s private collection. As the 

title suggests, the show had a clear didactic tone. Bucarelli and Venturi did 

not want simply to show the works in their gallery—if the public was to 

really learn about the works on display, the show had to facilitate a 

conversation around them. Most of the reproductions were accompanied 

by biographical information about the artist or different critics’ 

69
Camerlingo, “‘Non ho mai lavorato per gli artisti o per i critici, ma solo 
per il pubblico’: Storia della Didattica in Galleria (1945-1975).” 
70
Camerlingo; Duboÿ, ​Carlo Scarpa: L’arte di esporre.​  
71
Camerlingo, “‘Non ho mai lavorato per gli artisti o per i critici, ma solo 
per il pubblico’: Storia della Didattica in Galleria (1945-1975).” 
72
Camerlingo. 
 Hopper 43 
 
73
perspectives on their work. So, while the purpose of this show was to 

make up for the deficiency of foreign artwork available to the public 

during fascist rule, its organizers actually co-opted two of the central 

tactics used by fascist museographers: heavy use of reproductions and a 

focus on didactic accompaniments to displayed works.  

In Bucarelli's hands, though, the effect was to broaden visitors’ 

understanding of art, rather than focus attention on a very limited Italian 

fascist narrative. While fascist exhibitions were fully self-centered, 

discussing only Italian culture and Italian artists in an effort to prove their 

superiority, the ​Mostra Didattica​ was a consciously international exhibition. 

In allowing Italians to experience art from across Europe, it opened their 

eyes to a larger world of art. Indeed, much of GNAM's programming was 

dedicated to widening cultural horizons. Bucarelli made a point, in her 

later exhibitions, to bring foreign and controversial artists into the 

museum, for the express purposes of diversifying the artistic landscape. 

This effort was not lost on the public; a 1955 anonymous article in the 

daily journal ​Il Paese​ referred to GNAM as an institution that worked "in 

terms of cultural preparation", fulfilling the "necessity of our [human] 

74
spirit to truly know painting and sculpture".  

The reproductions in the ​Mostra Didattica​ were also very different 

from those used in the Museo dell’Impero Romano and MAR. The 

73
Camerlingo. 
74
Qtd. in Amaturo, “Il Pubblico di Palma Bucarelli: Oltre la Didattica,” 73. 
 Hopper 44 
 
reproductions used in fascist shows were abstracted historical artifacts, 

edited to show a modern ideal of an ancient type. Bucarelli and Venturi, 

by contrast, took pride in the accuracy and quality of reproductions in 

their show. In their view, it was GNAM’s obligation to bring the full 

experience of an artwork to their visitors when they could not see the 

work itself. They did not want to display their interpretation of the 

artwork, but rather wanted to give visitors an opportunity to develop their 

own reaction to it. Neither did they manipulate visitors’ understandings of 

the works by framing them in collages, art installations, or other 

immersive architectural feats. The paintings were intended to speak for 

themselves. It was not a phenomenological experience, as were the MAR 

and MRF, but an educational presentation. 

The show had its critics—many people did not expect an 

educational purpose in a seemingly traditional show of paintings—but, for 

the most part, it was a success. The public and the intellectual community 

appreciated the didactic bent and ingenuity of the show. The government 

even helped Bucarelli organize similar reproduction-based shows across 

75
the country. As art critic and conservator Cesare Brandi put it in 1955 

newspaper article, such a prestigious institution as GNAM had not only the 

means, but an obligation to make foreign works accessible to the public. 

Shows made entirely of reproductions did not a museum make, he said, 

75
Bert, “Mostra didattica di riproduzione di pittura moderna. Verona 
(1948).” 
 Hopper 45 
 
but shows like the ​Mostra Didattica​ “keep the oil lamp of hope lit” until 
76
international borrowing and collaboration became possible.   

After this early success of the ​Mostra Didattica,​ in summer 1949, 

Bucarelli reserved a whole hall of GNAM for didactic programming. One 

large room was equipped with screens, projectors, chairs, and speakers for 

a regular series of lectures and discussions to be held for the general public 

every Sunday morning (officially beginning in 1951). Four rooms were 

reserved for didactic shows, which began in earnest later that year—before 

the rest of the hall was finished—with the exhibits ​Civiltà Nuragica​ and 
77
Allegoria nei Secoli XVI and XVII.​ Programming steadily increased 

throughout the next decade: there were monthly reproduction-based 

shows of major European artworks, modeled after the ​Mostra Didattica​; 

Sunday morning lectures occurred every week at 11 A.M., a time easily 

accessible for workers and students; each day, museum staff marked an 

“opera del giorno” in the gallery with special didactic accompaniments 

and illustrations; guided tours for the general public, for students, and for 

foreign visitors in their own languages occurred regularly at set times of 

the week. The GNAM’s archive and library of contemporary art, which is 

still functional today, was founded in this fruitful first decade, and was so 

76
Published in "Cronache", Jan. 15, 1955 under the title ​Impressionisti in 
Cartolina​. Qtd. in Camerlingo, “‘Non ho mai lavorato per gli artisti o per i 
critici, ma solo per il pubblico’: Storia della Didattica in Galleria 
(1945-1975),” 66. 
77
Camerlingo, 65. 
 Hopper 46 
 
productive that the museum began an internal photography studio for 
78
producing the slides used in lectures there. Also at this time, Bucarelli 

instituted a series of film screenings about the Italian avant-garde, 

intended to accompany exhibitions. She began by borrowing films from 

libraries and museums abroad, but in 1955 decided to produce films for 
79
the series in-house. She invested time and resource in film because she 

saw them as the most accessible, easily understandable way to disperse 

cultural knowledge and facilitate a deeper understanding of exhibits. 

Bucarelli’s accomplishments in GNAM may seem standard to 

today’s readers; most large museums today offer regular educational 

programming and tours. But at the time, her achievements were 

monumental. In an Italy ravaged by war and struggling to reconstitute 

basic infrastructure, a 27-year-old woman began a 33-year tenure at one of 

the nation's most renowned institutions, changing the paradigm of 

museum function. Under Bucarelli’s leadership, GNAM opened 136 shows, 

each opening averaging around a thousand visitors. Each of these shows 

was accompanied by educational programming, both general and tailored 

to the exhibit. Not only did Bucarelli pioneer this monumental 

institutional shift, but she worked tirelessly to counterbalance decades of 

government-controlled museography and arts culture. She curated 

78
Camerlingo, “‘Non ho mai lavorato per gli artisti o per i critici, ma solo 
per il pubblico’: Storia della Didattica in Galleria (1945-1975).” 
79
Camerlingo, 66. 
 Hopper 47 
 
exhibits of young, unknown, and controversial artists as well as exhibits of 

major art movements across Europe and the world, all intended to 

broaden visitors’ cultural knowledge and break Italian culture out of the 
80
self-absorbed directives of the fascist era. Bucarelli was a remarkable 

leader working in a turbulent time. She worked to make her museum an 

active, socially responsible one, one that strengthened her community by 

generating knowledge. 

Visual Literacy: A pedagogical shift 

The most important difference between the new generation and fascist 

museographers was theory. To the new generation, the museum was a tool 

for educating the public, not for propaganda. After living through the second 

world war and the​ events that precipitated it in Italy, many of this 

generation adopted strong moral and political stances towards art and 

culture. As previously mentioned, Palma Bucarelli broke legal and 

institutional protocol to protect cultural heritage during the war. Fernanda 

Wittgens, director of the Pinacoteca di Brera, was arrested in 1941 for 

helping refugees flee Italy. When interviewed in prison, she delivered a 

call to action to her colleagues across the country: “When civilization 

collapses and man becomes a beast, whose job is it to defend our ideals? 

Those people we call ‘intellectuals’. It would be so nice to be an intellectual 

80
Camerlingo, 70. 
 Hopper 48 
 
81
in peacetime and a coward when it’s dangerous.” In her view, art 

criticism and display were not secondary to Italy’s turmoil. As a vehicle for 

ideology, art was inextricably tied to politics and society; just as fascism 

had spread through the country in partial thanks to fascist-sponsored art 

and museography, so would democracy have to spread, through art theory 

and museography focused on creating knowledge and community.  

As such, education was a central focus of the postwar generation. 

The young museographers who agreed with Wittgens highly valued 

theories of art pedagogy and used them to guide their work. Several such 

works were written outside Italy during the fascist period, and translated 

into Italian after the war. Most important were John Dewey’s ​Art as 

Experience​ (American, written 1934, translated 1951) and Herbert Read’s 

82
Education through Art​ (English, written 1941, translated 1954). These 

authors argued that art was not something that lived inside a fortress-like 

museum, privileging only a minority of literati, but something that, when 

experienced fully, could profoundly impact anyone and develop their 

critical thinking and communication skills. They also argued that this 

experience of art had to be facilitated by museums, that the skills of 

reading an artwork must be taught inside the gallery space. If these 

81
Qtd. in Falguières, “L’arte della mostra. Per un’altra genealogia del ‘white 
cube,’” 18. 
82
Falguières, 16–17; Cantatore, “The Museum as a Tool for Social 
Education. The Experience of Palma Bucarelli (1945-1975) at the Galleria 
Nazionale d’Arte Moderna.” 
 Hopper 49 
 
objectives were attained, all visitors could analyze, learn about, and 

connect with art, and in so doing, they would empower themselves to 

think critically about their worlds and better their communities. 

John Dewey’s primary thesis in ​Art as Experience​ is that art is only 

impactful insofar as it incites a deeper experience in a viewer, as it 

interacts with a person’s thoughts or spirit. He strongly argued against 

what he saw as the classical museum-as-fortress model, in which paintings 

are stored in a difficult-to-access building and most visitors are made to 

hurry through without any explanation of or real engagement with the 

83
displayed works. He drew a distinction between “recognition”—looking 

at a painting, identifying the artist, and moving on—and “perception”-- 

identifying the compositional choices made by the artist, determining 

their significance, and communicating that analysis with others. Art, he 

argued, only realizes its potential when viewers “perceive” a work rather 
84
than “recognize” it.   

Dewey also emphasized the role of interpersonal communication in 

creating a perceptive art experience. The experience of art, he explained, 

“is not an isolated event confined to an artist and to a person here and 

there who happens to enjoy the work….it is also a remaking of the 

85
community in the direction of greater order and unity.” Bucarelli’s work 

83
Dewey, ​Art as Experience,​ 54. 
84
Dewey, 52–53. 
85
Dewey, 81. 
 Hopper 50 
 
instituting public programming at GNAM was an expression of this 

theory; not only was she providing art to the public, but she was 

facilitating broader conversation around it through regular discussions, 

86
tours, and events.   

Dewey argued that art perception was a skill anyone could master, 

but only when properly familiarized with the “language” of art. Art, Dewey 

said, had its own “syntax” of signifiers, such as composition, color, rhythm, 

and balance, and signified meaning attached to each of these. Through 

visual literacy, a familiarity with these component elements, visitors 

would develop their ability to fully perceive art and reflect on it. Only 

through this act of “reconstructive doing” does art reach its potential, 
87
becoming fully “fresh and alive” in the mind of the viewer.   

Herbert Read developed a similar stance to Dewey in ​Education 

through Art​, elaborating more on the idea and benefits of visual literacy, 

which he referred to as “aesthetic education”. An aesthetic education, he 

said, was a counterbalance to “those arbitrary systems of thought, 

dogmatic or rationalistic in origin, which seek…to impose a logical or 

86
Bucarelli aligned herself with circles that espoused this theory, including 
the Allied Control Commision, whose education branch was led by 
Carleton Washburne, student of John Dewey. As head of ACC's Education 
Subcommission, Washburne worked closely with the Ministry of National 
Education, which worked closely with museums. See White, ​Progressive 
Renaissance;​ Cantatore, “The Museum as a Tool for Social Education. The 
Experience of Palma Bucarelli (1945-1975) at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte 
Moderna.” 
87
Dewey, ​Art as Experience,​ 220. 
 Hopper 51 
 
88
intellectual pattern on the world”. Read’s conviction that aesthetic 

education could combat dogma and social control must have resonated 

strongly with postwar museographers, who themselves sought to 

dismantle the dogmatic arts structure of the fascist period. Read, like 

Dewey, promoted the idea that art perception was possible for all, if they 

became familiar with art’s component elements. Read took this belief a 

step further than Dewey, arguing that visual literacy was not only useful in 

decoding art inside the gallery, but also in better understanding the space 

of the museum, the structure of the world around us. In his words,  

Art is one of those things which, like air or soil, is everywhere about 
us, but which we rarely stop to consider. For art is not just something 
we find in museums and art galleries, or in old cities like Florence 
and Rome. Art, however we may define it, is present in everything 
89
we make to please our senses.   
 
This concept in particular resonated with the museum designers of the 

postwar generation. Many postwar theorists were generating similar ideas 

in Italy, including art critic and politician Giulio Carlo Argan; conservator 
90
Cesare Brandi; and critic and collector Benedetto Croce. As Argan wrote 
91
in 1949, “if art is education, the museum has to become the school”.   

88
Read, ​Education through Art,​ 7. 
89
Read, 15. Read’s comment about Rome and Florence reads ironically 
here, but he intended it as a statement against conventional 
understandings of museums as bunkers of the artistic canon. 
90
See especially Argan’s 1949 article “Il Museo Come Scuola”, published in 
the review ​Comunità,​ and Brandi’s ​Theory of Restoration​, 1977.  
91
Qtd. in Falguières, “L’arte della mostra. Per un’altra genealogia del ‘white 
cube,’” 16–17. 
 Hopper 52 
 
Though the line between propaganda and public education is 

elusive, for the purposes of this study I draw it according to who 

determines the message of each exhibition. In the fascist, propagandistic 

shows, each show's message was centrally determined, and drilled a key 

political message—Italian cultural superiority—into the minds of all who 

visited. In the postwar exhibits, including the ​Mostra Didattica​ and those I 

will discuss in the following sections, museographers presented visitors 

with a wide range of artworks and encouraged them to form their own 

reactions. Just as their fascist predecessors did, these designers used 

architecture and exhibit design as their primary tools of communication; 

however, they strove to create an educational, democratic museum 

experience, where visitors were free to see a range of works and create 

their own interpretive dialogues. 

Architecture and Education: museum design in the new 

generation 
One of the most renowned producers of didactic museum design 

was Carlo Scarpa, the Venetian architect and exhibit designer whose work 

I will discuss in the coming sections. His main source of inspiration, as he 

shared in one interview, was visitors’ experiences in the museum:  

At the Tate Gallery in London, I saw children in front of a Matisse 

painting, a paper collage in yellow, pink, and green. Imagine these 
joyous kids, sat on the ground, capable of saying, ‘us, too, we could 
make that’, but this painting was worth maybe 200 million. I don’t 
know if the children understood all the processes [behind the art and 
its making]; education would permit them to. …We could teach 
 Hopper 53 
 
Fröbel [another theory of art education] to children, even children 
92
in their first two years of school, could we not?   
 
Scarpa saw that the children loved the work on display, but that they 

did not understand it fully. Why, he thought, could the museum not do 

more to help them analyze the art and understand its making? Palma 

Bucarelli’s solution to this problem was hands-on, using workshops, tours, 

lectures, and discussions to turn her museum into a functioning school. 

Scarpa proposed another solution, embedded into the very fabric of the 

museum: a new kind of didactic architecture, designed to facilitate visitors’ 

connection with and understanding of displayed works. The following 

sections will discuss in detail Scarpa's most influential museum designs, all 

of which applied these concepts both inside and outside the gallery space.  

As museums’ purpose was under reconsideration after the war, so 

was their physical structure. In alignment with the theory discussed above, 

the postwar generation believed that art not only exists within its frame, 

but extends into wider life. To designers like Scarpa, a traditional gallery 

of paintings placed onto a blank wall did not do enough to help the visitor 

understand the art displayed; it relied on the visitor’s having prior 

knowledge of art history, and thus excluded a wide segment of the public 

from full engagement with the museum. In order to facilitate perception 

of and engagement with art, the new generation designed galleries and 

museums that called attention to the very language of art itself. 

92
Qtd. in Duboÿ, ​Carlo Scarpa: L’arte di esporre,​ 50. 
 Hopper 54 
 
One of the clearest and most important examples of Scarpa’s praxis 

was the 1956 Piet Mondrian retrospective at none other than the Galleria 

Nazionale d’Arte Moderna. Directed by Palma Bucarelli and designed by 

Scarpa, this temporary exhibit attracted much attention; foreign 

avant-garde exhibitions were still rare in the 1950s, and such a famous 
93
artist at the GNAM automatically garnered press attention.  

Correspondingly, Scarpa and Bucarelli made sure to create a show that 

showcased their ideals: highlighting the visual components of the art on 

display, and creating spaces that allowed customers to easily understand 

and engage with the art. 

To accomplish this goal, Scarpa designed a display that subtly 

echoed the key visual components of Mondrian’s work throughout the 

gallery space. Scarpa and Bucarelli aimed to incorporate Mondrian’s 

famous central belief—that all space can be organized into a grid of 

horizontal and vertical lines—into their design, but without creating a 

visually overwhelming “architecture à la Mondrian with colored supports 

94
outlined in black”, as Bucarelli put it. They wanted a subtle design, one 

that did not impose any interpretation on the visitor, but that highlighted 

the defining visual elements of Mondrian’s work.  

Coltelli, “1956: Piet Mondrian. Dietro le quinte di una grande mostra.” 

93

Duboÿ, “L’exposition de Piet Mondrian, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte 

94

Moderna, Roma, et Palazzo Reale, Milan.” 

 Hopper 55 
 
Each painting was mounted either directly onto a wall or onto a 

panel of raw canvas, each canvas panel connected to its neighbors and the 

ground by a network of horizontal and vertical metal rails. This network, 

as well as the perpendicular weave pattern of the raw canvas, subtly 

extended horizontals and verticals out from the artwork onto the wall 

behind it, and into the space of the gallery. [Fig. 26] The system even 

made up the construction of the gallery itself: the temporary walls and 

doorway panels Scarpa used to structure the space were all strictly 
95
orthogonal, sometimes perforated by a grid of square holes. Piet 

Mondrian famously thought of the world as space, divisible into 

horizontal and vertical fragments in a kind of grid. Scarpa’s design created 

that space inside the gallery—the strict orthogonals of the rails and panels 

echo the compositions of Mondrian’s paintings in three dimensions. 

Visitors moved around a Mondrian-space, so to speak, bodily 

experiencing the painter's philosophy. [Fig. 27, 28] 

Scarpa’s design not only highlighted those visual elements of a 

Mondrian painting, but also gave visitors space to fully contemplate and 

converse with each painting. Each work had its own panel, providing 

viewers with space and time to focus on each work individually, to have a 

"perceptive" experience, in Dewey's terminology. As Bucarelli explained in 

a 1957 article, no painting was crowded against another, but none was 

95
Duboÿ. 
 Hopper 56 
 
96
completely isolated. The space between each panel allowed a peripheral 

view of nearby paintings. It was designed for conversation, for fluid 

movement between paintings, but slow looking at each one. In this space, 

any viewer, no matter if they were an art historian or an average citizen, 

could easily engage with the artworks and form their own opinions, 

comparing and contrasting works and conversing with other visitors. [Fig. 

29] It immersed visitors in the experience of displayed works, just as the 

fascist shows did, but held no political agenda. Scarpa and Bucarelli used 

Mondrian's grid as a space to generate art historical knowledge.  

The careful thought put into this exhibit’s design was not lost on the 

public. This show was very successful, attracting much press attention. 

Journalist Francesco Arcangeli wrote in ​L’Europeo​ that the subtle design 

familiarized “even the lowest visitor” with Mondrian’s philosophy and 

97
more difficult-to-grasp designs. Because of its use of art pedagogy 

principles—drawing out the key visual components of a work, and 

allowing space for analysis of and conversation about that work—they 

created a show that facilitated visitor understanding with minimal 

imposition of curatorial interpretation. Like the MAR and MRF, this show 

was carefully calibrated to the visitors’ perspective and experience, and 

used innovative, immersive techniques to accomplish its goals. Unlike 

these fascist shows, the Mondrian show brought the work of an important, 

96
Duboÿ, 134. 
97
Duboÿ, 137. 
 Hopper 57 
 
foreign artist to Italians, and was designed to facilitate visitors' own 

reactions to the work, not to communicate a pre-determined political 

message.  

The Mondrian show of 1956 was an innovative solution to the 

problem of museums’ relationship with visitors. But there were many 

museums across Italy at that same time that were in no position to host 

such elaborate shows, and that needed to dedicate substantial resources to 

simply staying standing. As many scholars have recognized, Italy is unique 

in its high proportion of museums housed in historic buildings and 

98
monuments. After five years of wartime bombing, many museums, 

especially those housed in historic buildings, desperately needed 

restoration and conservation. Instead of simply repairing, many directors 

and architects saw this as a chance for creative intervention. Through such 

interventions, many historic museums were updated to the latest 

standards in visitor education and art experience, outgrowing their old 

functions as storehouses of art and becoming places where visitors could 

easily learn about and engage with art.  

This impulse was not unfamiliar to those in the museum field. As 

we have seen, fascist museographers were quick to intervene in the 

physical structure of the museum in order to improve visitors’ 

connections with the show, via false façades, temporary walls, and 

98
Brandi, ​Theory of Restoration​; Lorente, “Il Peso Del Passato”; Jokilehto, 
“Authenticity in Restoration Principles and Practices.” 
 Hopper 58 
 
monumental reconstructions. Postwar museographers were equally 

willing to intervene in museums’ physical structures, but with added 

99
focuses on conservation, preservation, and education.  

This praxis grew rapidly in postwar Italy. An extreme example was 

the 1953 show of Picasso’s famous anti-war work, ​Guernica​, in Milan. For 

this show, director Fernanda Wittgens placed the painting in the 

bombed-out ruins of Milan’s Palazzo Reale. She tied the message of the 

painting, so relevant to Italians who had lived through the war themselves, 

to the real pain abd destruction evident in the architecture—connecting 

100
the visitors to the art by way of the built environment. [Fig. 30] It was 

also during the 1940s and 50s that influential Italian conservator Cesare 

Brandi was making a name for himself, developing the theory that in 1977 
101
would become the groundbreaking volume ​Teoria del Restauro​. Informed 

by wartime threats to Italy’s cultural heritage, he argued for a 

multi-layered approach to conservation: any intervention must protect a 

building’s historical identity as much as it protects its function and 

102
physical appearance.  

99
Brandi, ​Theory of Restoration​; Falguières, “L’arte della mostra. Per un’altra 
genealogia del ‘white cube.’” 
100
Falguières, “L’arte della mostra. Per un’altra genealogia del ‘white 
cube,’” 27. 
101
Kanter, “The Reception and Non-Reception of Cesare Brandi in 
America.” 
102
Brandi, ​Theory of Restoration​. 
 Hopper 59 
 
Perhaps the most famous and celebrated example of such 

interventions was Carlo Scarpa’s renovation of Verona’s Castelvecchio 

museum. From 1958-1974, Scarpa worked with director Lisisco Magagnato 

to renovate and remodel the museum, beginning with excavations and 

ending with a design that makes clear each chapter of the castle’s complex 

history.  

Verona’s Castelvecchio was a site particularly well-suited to this 

approach. The building itself was built on the intersection of the city’s 

medieval walls and bridge, and has a clear view of the city roads that 

continue into the building itself. As part of the renovation process, Scarpa 

and his team had to excavate sections of the site, both to assess damage 

and find ways to better utilize the castle as a museum. Each excavation 

revealed a chapter in the building's history: a castle at the intersection of 

power and transport in medieval Verona; a new civic museum in the early 
103
20​th​ century; and a site of creative renovation in 1958. [Fig. 31] 

Following Cesare Brandi’s preservation theory, Scarpa intentionally 

preserved these histories while increasing the site’s utility as a civic 

museum. He made strategic cuts in the fabric of the building that revealed 

historical strata, highlighting the centuries of local importance that the 

104
building held. For example, when designing a stairway to connect two 

wings of the museum, Scarpa used medieval terra-cotta slabs uncovered 

103
Murphy, “Carlo Scarpa: Remodelling the Castelvecchio Museum.” 
104
Murphy. 
 Hopper 60 
 
during excavation; slabs of locally-sourced marble formed each step. Each 

platform is raised, exposing the terra cotta beneath. So, to travel from one 

wing to another, each visitor must behold and tread on layers of history, 

some pulled out of the medieval past, some pulled raw from the hills just 

beyond Verona. [Fig. 32] When Scarpa’s team excavated to begin the 

renovation, they were doing the opposite of fascist archaeologists like 

Giglioli. They were not inventing history, but finding it in situ and 

bringing it to the forefront of the project. More than simple preservation, 

Scarpa’s work at the Castelvecchio museum was a holistic museographical 

experience that immersed the viewer in the biography of Castelvecchio.  

The Sculpture Gallery is another embodiment of Scarpa's approach 

of layered historical markers. Alongside the medieval artwork is a 

monumental doorway. Modern metal grates are laid over a glass door, 

which is built into a glass inlay to an arched portal, echoing the shape of 

the arches originally built into the castle. Through another portal is just 

barely visible the museum’s most famous work: the equestrian statue of 

Cangrande I della Scala. [Fig. 33] 

Cangrande I della Scala was ruler of Verona from 1309-1329. His 

equestrian statue was a symbol of Verona that, once added to the city’s 

collection in 1909, became a symbol of the civic museum. [Fig. 34] It was 

originally placed atop the Arche Scaligere, the funereal monuments to the 

prominent Scaligeri family. It was atop an elaborate gothic tower, 

 Hopper 61 
 
towering over the viewer and nearby buildings. Its large, pyramid support, 

encrusted in gothic decoration, clearly communicated the power of 

Cangrande, as well as his close relationship to the city. In 1909, the statue 

was moved indoors to Castelvecchio (which was built by Cangrande II 

della Scala) to protect it from the elements; it was in a small, closed-off 

105
room, far from the lofty dominion of the original.   

The presence of this work, with such local importance, added yet 

another layer of history to the Castelvecchio museum, another time 

period for Scarpa to highlight with his restoration. He viewed his 

treatment of the Cangrande statue as a microcosm for his restoration of 

the museum as a whole. How could he calibrate the architecture to both 

facilitate visitor interaction with the work, and draw attention to the 

complex history of the museum itself? In searching for a solution to this 

problem, Scarpa attempted many installations of the Cangrande 

monument, none of them capturing the statue’s original domination over 

its environment while allowing the viewer to comfortably observe it and 

analyze it. In one attempt, Scarpa placed the statue at the entrance of the 

museum, on a support that echoed the pyramid shape of the Scaliger 

tombs. In this iteration, the statue was separate from the museum path 

and isolated from other artworks. [Fig. 35] Scarpa decided in later 

iterations to integrate the statue into the museum, ensuring that visitors 

105
“Sede e Storia: Cangrande.” 
 Hopper 62 
 
encountered it during their visit. [Fig. 36] After working through a number 

of unsatisfactory proposals, Scarpa arrived at the current installation, as 

106
much a pride of the museum as the statue itself.   

The current home of Cangrande’s equestrian monument is a hub of 

museum pathways, between the medieval walls of the building, visible 

from many levels. [Fig. 37] It stands across from a gate cut into the 

medieval walls. Standing near the statue, one can see the paths inside the 

museum aligning with the city’s roads outside. The statue’s concrete 

support is slender, standing 7 meters above the ground floor of the 

museum, evoking the monument’s original height. [Fig. 38] It is 

surrounded by a network of walkways and stairs that allow the visitor to 

view it from many vantage points and heights, so that one can view the 

statue from a number of different perspectives. To protect the statue from 

the elements, Scarpa designed a partial roof in copper sheet and salvaged 

wood beam, inspired by traditional Venetian architecture—covering the 

statue and its immediate area, but ensuring that it stood framed against 
107
the open air as it did in its original position. [Fig. 39] 

The multiple vantage points provided in Scarpa’s design are the key 

to its success, the way it facilitates visitors’ connection to the statue. From 

each vantage point, the statue’s background reveals different chapters in 

“Sede e Storia: Cangrande.” 

106

Murphy, “Carlo Scarpa: Remodelling the Castelvecchio Museum”; 

107

“Sede e Storia: Cangrande.” 

 Hopper 63 
 
the biography of the city and the museum. Viewed from below, the statue 

is framed against the copper sheet roof and concrete support, all modern 

museographical inventions designed especially for the monument and 

speaking to its importance to the museum. [Fig. 40] Even near these 

modern elements, though, the medieval walls are visible, and the statue is 

still towering above the viewer, with much the same effect as it would have 

in its original state. Viewed from the second floor, the viewer is able to 

move close to the statue, picking out more detail than is possible from the 

ground floor. From this position, one can analyze it like a museum piece, 

identifying its material, composition, and rendering. However, one also 

sees the statue against the open air and medieval walls. [Fig. 41] Simply by 

walking through the museum, every visitor has a clear glimpse into the 

biography of the building, and can experience its most important work 

multiple times, from multiple perspectives. It, too, was a space designed 
108
for slow looking, conversation, and learning. [Fig. 42, 43] 

In the words of architectural historian Richard Murphy, “There is 

no one place to see [the Cangrande statue], and that’s why it’s such a 

modern idea…you are always invited to move and see it in a different 

109
way”. The multiple vantage points provided in Scarpa’s design are the 

108
“Sede e Storia: Cangrande”; Murphy, “Carlo Scarpa: Remodelling the 
Castelvecchio Museum.” Many museum visitors of the 21​st​ century have 
also posted walk-through videos of the museum and statue on sites like 
YouTube. As the installation has not changed since its completion, these 
videos are good sources of the many vantage points of Scarpa’s design. 
109
Murphy, “Carlo Scarpa: Remodelling the Castelvecchio Museum.” 
 Hopper 64 
 
key to its success, the way it facilitates visitors’ connection to the statue. 

From each point, the statue’s background reveals different chapters in the 

biography of the city and the museum. Scarpa did not design a simple 

pedestal for the statue, but rather an extension of the museum itself, 

deliberately crafted to showcase one monument’s history and aesthetics. 

Instead of placing a plaque of text next to the statue, describing its long 

history and relationship to the city and museum, Scarpa embedded the 

narrative into the display. While walking around the statue, a visitor sees 

remnants from the medieval period to the later part of the 20​th ​century: 

medieval walls, wood beams and copper roofs, concrete pedestals, and 

paths leading in and out of the museum, connecting the city and its people 

to the art inside Castelvecchio. 

Scarpa’s intervention in Castelvecchio was a paragon of postwar 

museography as influenced by educational and conservation theory. It 

guaranteed visitors an extended, dynamic experience with key artworks, 

and highlighted the site’s history and local importance. But the very fact 

that Scarpa was able to perform such an intensive, immersive 

museographical intervention as part of a historical conservation speaks to 

the mindset of Italian museographers after the war. The most successful 

museum exhibits, following in the footsteps of those of the 1920s and 30s, 

utilized avant-garde, immersive architecture to provide visitors with an 

unforgettable experience. Each change to a museum’s fabric, then, was an 

 Hopper 65 
 
opportunity to apply these principles. Scarpa and Magagnato knew that 

innovative, experience-oriented architecture would not only draw visitors 

in, but allow them to easily learn about the museum and its collection. 

They built on the legacy of innovative fascist exhibit design to create a 

museum that, rather than actively communicating a political statement, 

passively revealed local history and facilitated visitors’ understanding of 

the art within.  

Conclusion 
The history I tell here draws a line between two generations. In the 

first, museums engaged their visitors with corrupt motivations. In the 

second, museums realized that visitor engagement could move beyond 

propaganda and into public education. The line extends: in 1976, Giulio 

Carlo Argan became Rome's first Communist mayor, and during his 

tenure instituted a summer program of public art events that was designed 
110
to break art out of the museum and better connect with the city. Italian 

architects became renowned across the world for their museum design, 

with Renzo Piano's design for the Centre Pompidou winning an 

international jury in 1971 and Gae Aulenti entrusted in 1980 with the 

remodeling of the Musée d'Orsay. Both designs are famous (and 

controversial) for their innovation. Piano's design exalts building function 

Sartogo, ​Roma Interrotta​. This program, titled “Estate Romana” or 

110

Roman Summer, is still in action today. 

 Hopper 66 
 
and visitor movement as no other building had done before; Aulenti's 

marries historical chapters of the Gare d'Orsay and prioritizes multiple 

111
points of view from which to view the collection. Both buildings create 

intense museum experiences unlike any other in the world, and both draw 

upon the innovations of Italian museographers past, in their eye for visitor 

experience and holistic conception of museography.  

A less beautiful line extends, obscured but present, from the fascist 

exhibitions to Rome's contemporary cultural landscape. The EUR 

complex, built as a permanent, urban monument to fascist museography 

and history, still stands today, with many of its museums still open to the 
112
public. The Museo della Civiltà Romana, housed in a pavilion of 

gargantuan white columns and orthogonal portals, still displays the same 

collection of plaster casts and reproductions as the ​Mostra Augustea della 

Romanità​, the same collection that allowed Giglioli and his team to bend 

ancient history to their curatorial wills. In the Museo della Civiltà 

Romana's promotional materials, these reproductions are presented as a 

"journey through Imperial Rome", a "virtual ancient museum", an 

approachable means of experiencing art history. But they do not 

acknowledge the history of the collection, or that in 1937 a different 

111
Mainardi, “Postmodern History at the Musée d’Orsay.” 
112
Cosmo, “Defining Self by Collecting the Other.” 
 Hopper 67 
 
museum displayed it for the same reasons, with much more sinister 
113
intentions.  

To be perfectly clear, none of the postwar museographers I discuss 

here, whether working in 1950, 1970, or 2018, directly claim connections to 

fascism or fascist museography. Their work was in many ways a 

counterbalance to fascism's legacy, working to decentralize the museum 

and use it to foster diverse reactions to art, not to control art. But the 

historical influence is clear. Even if they worked for different reasons, 

postwar museographers built museums to be experiential, experimental, 

and approachable to any visitor, just as their fascist predecessors did. The 

significance of my research lies not only in the way fascism left its mark 

on Italian culture, but also in the ways that postwar museographers were 

able to convert it into something positive, democratic, and educational.  

   

113
Musei in Comune Roma, ​Museo Della Civiltà Romana​. 
 Hopper 68 
 
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 Hopper 72 
 

Figures 

 
Fig. 1. ​Mostra della Rivoluzione Fascista​. Floor plan. I have highlighted the historical 
rooms in orange. From Schnapp, “Fascism’s Museum in Motion”​,​ 90. 1932. 
 
 Hopper 73 
 

 
Fig. 2. ​Mostra della Rivoluzione Fascista​. Temporary façade. 1932. Archivi Alinari.  
 
 Hopper 74 
 

 
Fig. 3. ​Mostra della Rivoluzione Fascista​. Entrance arcade. 1932. From Schnapp, 
“Spectacle Factory”, p. 260. 
 
 Hopper 75 
 
 

 
Fig. 4. ​Mostra della Rivoluzione Fascista​. Room O, designed by Giuseppe Terragni. 
From Mainetti, 1932. “Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution”, 272.  
 
 Hopper 76 
 

Fig. 5. ​Mostra della Rivoluzione Fascista​. Sala del 1914. 1932. Archivi Alinari.  
 
 Hopper 77 
 

Fig. 6. ​MRF.​ Tuscan officials on a sponsored trip to the exhibit, with Futurist 
paintings behind. 1932. Archivio Storico Istituto Luce.  
 
 Hopper 78 
 

 
Fig. 7. ​MRF.​ Room O, designed by Giuseppe Terragni. This collage includes 
documents, Roman salutes, photographs, and three-dimensional turbines (at 
right). 1932. From Mainetti, “Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution”, 271.  
 
 Hopper 79 
 

 
Fig. 8. ​MRF​. Sala del 1919, designed by Marcello Nizzoli. 1932. Archivi Alinari. 
 
 Hopper 80 
 

 
Fig. 9. ​MRF.​ Sala del 1919, designed by Marcello Nizzoli. 1932. Archivi Alinari. 
 Hopper 81 
 
 

 
Fig. 10. ​MRF​. Sala del 1919, designed by Marcello Nizzoli. 1932. Archivi Alinari. 
 
 Hopper 82 
 

Fig. 11. ​MRF​. Sala del 1919, designed by Marcello Nizzoli. 1932. Archivi Alinari. 
 
 Hopper 83 
 

 
Fig. 12. ​MRF.​ Students examining a sculpture of fascist youth by Publio 
Morbiducci, in a room titled “Fascist youth abroad”. 1932. Archivio Storico 
Istituto Luce.  
 
 Hopper 84 
 

 
Fig. 13. ​MRF.​ Reconstruction of Mussolini’s office at ​Il Popolo d’Italia​ in the 
“Mussolini Room”. 1932. From Mainetti, “Exhibition…”, 273.  
 Hopper 85 
 

Fig. 14. ​MRF​. Sacrarium for the Martyrs of the Fascist Revolution. 1932. From 
Mainetti, 273.  
 
 Hopper 86 
 

 
Fig. 15. Temporary façade at the second location of the ​MRF,​ at the Galleria 
Nazionale d’Arte Moderna. 1937. Archivio Storico Istituto Luce.  
 
 Hopper 87 
 

 
Fig. 16. Mussolini at the second iteration of the ​MRF,​ at the Galleria Nazionale. 
Note the display, still utilizing collage but contained within cases. 1937. Archivio 
Storico Istituto Luce.  
 
 Hopper 88 
 

 
Fig. 17. ​Mostra Augustea della Romanità​. Temporary façade, with squadristi paying 
homage to Mussolini. 1937. Archivio Storico Istituto Luce.  
 
 Hopper 89 
 

 
Fig. 18. ​Mostra Augustea della Romanità.​ Room with plaster casts and figures from 
the Roman empire. 1937. Archivio Storico Istituto Luce.  
 
 Hopper 90 
 

 
Fig. 19. ​MAR.​ Reconstruction of a Roman Villa. 1937. Archivio Storico Istituto 
Luce.  
 Hopper 91 
 
 

 
Fig. 20. ​MAR.​ Mussolini at the inauguration of the MAR, inside a reconstruction 
of the Temple of Augustus at Ancyra. 1937. Archivio Storico Istituto Luce.  
 
 Hopper 92 
 

 
Fig. 21. ​MAR​. Installation view, with quotation from Cicero. 1937. Archivio Storico 
Istituto Luce. 
 
 Hopper 93 
 

 
Fig. 22. ​MAR​. Sculpture of victory, in front of a quotation from Mussolini 
regarding Italy’s colonial future. 1937. Archivio Storico Istituto Luce.  
 Hopper 94 
 

 
Fig. 23. ​MAR​. Installation view, with plaster casts and didactics. 1937. Archivio 
Storico Istituto Luce.  
 
 Hopper 95 
 

 
Fig. 24. Models of bridges on trusses in a room dedicated to Julius Caesar. 1937. 
Archivio Storico Istituto Luce.  
 
 Hopper 96 
 

 
Fig. 25. ​MAR​. Installation view with plow and didactics. 1937. From Arthurs, 
Excavating Modernity​, 104.  
 
 Hopper 97 
 

 
Fig. 26. Mondrian at GNAM. Installation view. 1956. Archivi Galleria Nazionale.  
 
 Hopper 98 
 

 
Fig. 27. Piet Mondrian, ​Composition A​, 1920. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna. 
Archivi Galleria Nazionale.  
 
 Hopper 99 
 

 
Fig. 28. Mondrian at GNAM. Installation view. 1956. Archivi Galleria Nazionale.  
 
 Hopper 100 
 

 
Fig. 29. Mondrian at GNAM. Installation view. 1956. Archivi Galleria Nazionale.  
 
 Hopper 101 
 

 
Fig. 30. Pablo Picasso’s ​Guernica​ in Milan, Palazzo Reale. Director: Fernanda 
Wittgens. 1953. Archivi Alinari.  
 Hopper 102 
 

 
th​
Fig. 31. Scarpa at Castelvecchio. Builders in a Roman tunnel with a 20​ -century 
wall. c. 1957. Archivio Carlo Scarpa.  
 Hopper 103 
 
 

 
Fig. 32. Scarpa at Castelvecchio. Stairway. c. 1960. Archivio Carlo Scarpa.  
 
 Hopper 104 
 

 
Fig. 33. Castelvecchio. Sculpture gallery. 1958. Archivio Carlo Scarpa.  
 
 Hopper 105 
 

 
Fig. 34. Cangrande I della Scala, ​in situ​ at the Arche Scaligere funereal 
monuments in Verona. Photo by Giorgio Sommer. Pre-1914. Wikimedia 
Commons. 
 Hopper 106 
 
 

 
Fig. 35. Castelvecchio. Hand-colored vintage photograph, one of Scarpa’s first 
investigations. c. 1961-64. Archivio Carlo Scarpa.  
 
 Hopper 107 
 

 
Fig. 36. Castelvecchio. Study for Cangrande’s current support, with visitor 
positions. c. 1964.  
 Hopper 108 
 
 

 
Fig. 37. Castelvecchio. Bird’s eye view of Cangrande’s current installation. c. 2013.  
 
 Hopper 109 
 

 
Fig. 38. Castelvecchio. Cangrande’s current installation and support. 1983. 
Archivio Carlo Scarpa.  
 
 Hopper 110 
 

 
Fig. 39. Castelvecchio. Cangrande’s current installation, with roof. 1965. Archivi 
Alinari.  
 
 Hopper 111 
 

 
Fig. 40. Castelvecchio. Cangrande, installation view. c. 1964. Archivio Carlo 
Scarpa.  
 
 Hopper 112 
 

 
Fig. 41. Castelvecchio. Cangrande, installation view. 1965. Archivio Carlo Scarpa.  
 
 Hopper 113 
 

 
Fig. 42. Castelvecchio. Cangrande, installation view, with visitors. 1964. Archivio 
Carlo Scarpa.  
 
 Hopper 114 
 

 
Fig. 43. Castelvecchio. Visitors looking at Cangrande from the constructed 
walkway. 1964. Archivio Carlo Scarpa.