The Contemporary Italian Art Collection at the Foreign Ministry

The exhibition of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ collection of 20th century contemporary Italian art was mounted in 1999 on an initiative of then Secretary general  Umberto Vattani. Its initial scope was to further embellish the spaces of the ministry building—the Farnesina Palace, already architecturally significant in its own right—and bear witness to the fact that one of the most distinguishing aspects of contemporary Italian culture is also an integral component of foreign policy. 
This explains the care and commitment with which the Ministry, through its Secretary General, the Directorate General for Cultural Promotion and the network of Italian Cultural Institutes abroad, contributed to turning the idea into the concrete reality it is today. In mounting the exhibition, curated by Prof. Maurizio Calvesi, the idea was to maintain harmony between content and container in such a way as to make the most of the various expressive forms of 20th century visual arts. Paintings, sculpture, mosaics and installations accompany the visitor through the ministry’s corridors, meeting rooms and formal reception areas.

The majority of the artistic production of the last century is represented in the collection, starting with the Futurism—the first Italian painting movement of the 20th century—of Balla and Boccioni, going on the De Chirico’s metaphysics and up to the artistic production of our own times: a century-long journey through Italian art, represented by internationally recognised artists whose works make up a collection consisting generally of loans from the artists themselves, foundation and collectors. 
The temporary loan formula adopted for the acquisition of these works allows for alternation and establishes the open-ended nature of the exhibition, rendering it truly unique as well as always new and different. Over the course of the years the works of some of the most famous Italian artists have come together in various ways, Afro, Angeli, Balla and Boccioni–whose famous "Unique Forms of Continuity in Space” is featured on the 20-cent euro coin—Boetti, Burri, Cambellotti, Caporossi, Ceroli, Carrà, Cascella, Cucchi, De Chirico, Depero, Dorazio, Guttuso, Licini, Marotta, Merz, Mirko, Paladino, Paolini, Penone, Plessi, Sironi, Soffici, Turcato and others, including the recently deceased Emilio Vedova.
The foreign ministry seizes any significant opportunity to open this enormous patrimony to the public, even beyond the confines of professional expertise and national borders. Sixty works were exhibited in Genoa in 2001 when Italy was president of the G8. The collection’s most significant pieces were shown in Milan in 2004 at the Palace of the Triennale, and were then shown in New Delhi and Mumbai in 2005 for the visit by the President of the Republic; in Japan, in the Italian Pavilion of the Aichi Expo; and in Belgrade, Serbia. The itinerant exhibition “Journey through Italian Art. 1950-80 moved on in 2007 to Sarajevo and Sofia, Budapest, Sibiu, Bucharest and Warsaw, and was received enthusiastically by the media and the public. The 100 pieces from the Ministry’s collection went on in 2008 to the principal capitals of  South America, Santiago del Chile, Lima, Sao Paolo, Buenos Aires, to conclude in Guadalajara.

History of the Farnesina Palace

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has its headquarters in a building designed between 1933 and 1935 by architects Del Debbio, Foschini and Morpurgo. The project grew out of a larger urban plan for the area known as the Orti della Farnesina, situated between Monte Mario and the Tiber River that was once the property of Pope Paul III (Alexander Farnese).
The Palace has all the typical features of 1920s and 30s Italian architecture: monumentality, mass, rhythm and symmetry. The decision to make it the headquarters of the foreign ministry, known worldwide as “the Farnesina”, was not taken until 1940, however, with construction already under way. The ministry moved in 1959 from its previous quarters in Palazzo Chigi and other buildings in the centre of Rome.
The building,  which covers a total of 120,000 m2 , has been host since 2000 to a prestigious art collection that bears witness to the dynamism and creative vitality of our country’s artistic production.