The last main floor room of the Nuovo Museo dell'Arte of Fondazione Luigi Rovati
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Luigi Rovati Foundation Museum, Milan: a path from Etruscan to contemporary art

The Luigi Rovati Foundation Museum restored the interiors of the building, made by Filippo Perego in the Sixties according to the taste of the Milanese bourgeoisie: colors explosions, golden doors, boiserie

The Luigi Rovati Foundation Museum

In Corso Venezia, in the heart of Milan, located in a historic palace, former private house, there is a foundation named after Luigi Rovati (1928-2019), Italian doctor, researcher and entrepreneur, known for having founded the pharmaceutical company Rottapharm. Already home to a library, a bookshop, a multifunctional space, a café-bistro, a gourmet restaurant and a garden with an exhibition pavilion, all open to the general public, in September 2022 the foundation inaugurated an art museum. 

With a 90% female staff and a female director, the art historian Monica Loffredo, the Luigi Rovati Foundation chose to display in its museum about two hundred and fifty pieces, combining Etruscan and contemporary art. 

The birth of the Luigi Rovati Foundation Museum

Giovanna Forlanelli Rovati, President of the foundation and Luigi Rovati’s daughter-in-law, affirms that the museum was born directly from Rottapharm, «which may seem strange, being Rottapharm a pharmaceutical company, but it is not so. Innovation and progress have always been two leading values for the company and the museum – which I founded with my husband and daughter, both doctors like me – follows the same red thread. Rottapharm is engaged in research activities characterized by an attention to social utility and an experimentation with culture and art». 

After its opening in 2016, the Luigi Rovati Foundation established partnerships with cultural and institutional organizations, both in Italy and abroad, focusing on archaeology and contemporary art. In doing so, Giovanna and her husband Lucio followed their passions. Indeed, Lucio already owned a private collection of Etruscan art, while Giovanna founded, back in 2005, Johan & Levi, a publishing house specialized in science and visual arts.

Antiquity through modernity: a journey through art history

The first step towards the birth of the Luigi Rovati Museum was the acquisition, in cooperation with the Italian Ministry of Culture, of an Etruscan collection from Geneve: «We bought those pieces of art back to Italy and then acted fast to enlarge the collection, going from eight hundred to five thousand finds in three years. Still, we decided to display just a fraction of them, because scientific studies show that people are able to stay focused for about an hour, an hour and a half maximum. And we wanted our museum to be different, modern, innovative». 

Visitors are invited to read and interpret antiquity through modernity and to go on a journey through art history. The temporary exhibitions will be placed within the permanent one, which will also change periodically in order to match with them. 

Temporary are also the exhibitions displayed in the already mentioned garden pavilion, which is free and always open to the general public, as an attempt to involve the citizenship of Milan and to make the Luigi Rovati Foundation become an integral part of locals’ everyday life: «You can come here to visit the museum, but also to drink a coffee or just to sit on the garden benches. We want to be open to the outer world and to welcome all kind of visitors, from youngsters to old people. This is what we call social utility and this is why we place great relevance on our visitors’ opinions: the museum will evolve according to their ratings, which we collect with two interactive terminals».

Luigi Rovati Foundation Museum, the municipality of Milan

To welcome the museum the Luigi Rovati Foundation, in agreement with the municipality of Milan, undertook a series of renovation interventions, starting from the building of an underground floor, designed by Mario Cucinella and made in pietraforte, a typical Florentine stone: «We dug over forty-five feet below the ground and to do so we had to stabilize the building by removing the roof, supporting the structure for six months with various piling techniques and then rebuilding the foundations. It was a success, to the point that we have not witnessed a single accident in four years». 

The building of the museum, along the lines of the interventions that preceded the foundation’s opening, was also characterized by a sustainable concern. Only natural materials were used, such as iron, steel, wood, with just few plastic elements coming from recycled sources. All the heating and humidification systems exploit groundwater. As for the lighting system, it uses energy-saving LED technology. Every detail, from handles to cases, have been specially designed for the museum. 

Mario Abis: invisible economy

The renovation process of the building was led by professionals who have been Renzo Piano’s pupils and carried on by Italian companies, with over five hundred people involved during four years: «This is what we call invisible economy, something we consider as the true value of our enterprise» Mario Abis, sociologist and member of the foundation’s scientific committee, declares. 

The construction opera of the building was promoted by that same social utility which is at the base of the activity of the museum: «We wanted to give back something to the local territory, we wanted to be sustainable not just under the ecological point of view, but also under the social point view, which we regard as an essential element for a modern economy»

The exhibition spaces of the Luigi Rovati Foundation Museum

Visitors begin their path along the museum in the underground floor, which at the moment focuses on writing. «Here there is no natural light and the artificial one is dim, because we want our visitors’ experience to be inner and emotional» Giovanna Forlanelli affirms. 

On the contrary, on the upper floor all the windows are left open, with no curtains, in order to avoid any filter with the outer world: «Here we restored in a philological way the original interiors of the building, made by interior designer Filippo Perego during the Sixties according to the taste of the Milanese bourgeoisie: colors explosions, golden doors, boiserie. On this floor, the first rooms focus on Etruscan art, with a few incursions into contemporary art, namely a vase by Picasso, a plate by Lucio Fontana, a small copper sculpture by William Kentridge and a ceramic Medusa head by Arturo Martini. Continuing along the museum path, contemporary artists such as Luigi Ontani, Giulio Paolini, Francesco Simeti and Marianna Kennedy are to be found, dialoguing with the place and the Etruscan art».

Sala Ontani: The Hellenistic period, Japan, Iran and Italy

The dialogue between different artistic currents is a recurring element in the museum, where objects are juxtaposed according to their theme and the emotions they may convey rather than following the traditional chronological criteria. This is evidenced by Sala Ontani, a room at the center of which stands a table with objects from the Hellenistic period, Japan, Iran and Italy, the last represented by Fontana’s chalk sculpture Maja Desnuda.

«Our museum has various interpretative levels, the first of which is purely emotional and does not require any specific knowledge. This falls into accordance with the aim of the foundation, that is to experiment with the relationship between culture and health, art and well-being. And so the circle closes, as art is combined with science. For us, it is a continuous experiment, as we have always done in our pharmaceutical world. Culture is for us like a medicine for people’s well-being and health».

Social utility of the Luigi Rovati Foundation 

The mantra of the Luigi Rovati Foundation is social utility, which is also at the base of the above-described clinical experimentation of the benefits culture may have on people’s health and of the possible scientific applications of art in the field of medicine. 

To promote this new concept of social utility the foundation also established a new language, as explained by Mario Abis: «On our website you will not find any of the traditional formulas, but a specific code that mirrors our culture and our aims. For example, instead of ‘Who we are’ and ‘Mission’, we preferred to talk about ideas, methods, and activities. We have a coherent link between what we do and the way we communicate: our research of a social utility includes the refusal of empty words, rhetorical formulas and what has already been said».

Luigi Rovati Foundation and their eight codes

At the base of the new language of the Luigi Rovati Foundation are eight codes, or values, that characterize all its activities: knowledge, expansion, inclusion, creation, space, esthetics, relation and the already mentioned social utility. Some of them speak for themselves. ‘Inclusion’ expresses the above-described goal to be «an open museum». As for ‘relation’, Mario describes it as the desire to find other subjects and territories that share the foundation’s values and which to cooperate with for the sake of social utility. 

This last also requires «a new way of relating with the different kinds of public, which has already begun to visit the museum: elderly people, youngsters, couples, families with small children, managers, cultural operators. Such multiplicity mirrors the complexity of the foundation itself, which is rooted in the local territory, but at the same time wishes to dialogue with the whole world».

Fondazione Luigi Rovati

Museo d’arte – Fondazione Luigi Rovati, Corso Venezia 52, Milan, is an art museum that combines ancient and contemporary art within a historic palace renovated in a sustainable way, which also houses a library, a bookshop, a multifunctional space, a café-bistro, a gourmet restaurant and a garden with an exhibition pavilion.

Debora Vitulano

The writer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article.

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