Book Description

"Great Museums is a volume dedicated to the subject of museums, analyzed through the history of how some emblematic Italian museums have been created. Eight examples, unique due to the richness, variety and importance of their collections, which in virtual terms also trace a kind of conceptual art history itinerary: from the Egyptian civilization, documented by the grandiose collection of the Egyptian Museum of Turin, to the Roman civilization represented by the Archaeological Museum of Naples, by the princely collections of the Uffizi, Pitti, Villa Borghese and Capodimonte, and finally to the great masterpieces of Italian artists from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth century, organized by schools and periods for didactic purposes, in the picture galleries of Milan and Venice. The purpose of the volume is to present the museum, not just as a safe storage for precious works of art, a place housing historical memories and a temple dedicated to absolute beauty, but as a place open to everyone, a central element in a kind of permanent education which develops and is accomplished both through a knowledge and appreciation of the history which has given Italy the world's largest artistic heritage, and by an interpretation of the single masterpieces, chosen as eloquent and fascinating testimonials of the changing taste and the transformation of the idea of beauty over time."--from the Publisher