Regional Museum of Messina

Regional Museum of Messina
Location	Viale della Libertà 465 ; Messina 98121, Sicily, Italy
Coordinates	38°13′00″N 15°33′50″E / 38.216693°N 15.563947°E
Director	Caterina Di Giacomo
Public transit access	Messina tramway: Museo

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

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

Building

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

Collections

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

Exhibition

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

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

History

Origins

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

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

Earthquake and recovery

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

Post-war restoration

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

Collections

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

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