Museo Barracco

Giovanni Barracco was born on the 28th April 1829 on the Island Capo Rizzuto, of a noble family which boasted Norman descent.
Barracco began legal studies, as was the family tradition, however he had a particular liking for ancient history. He received a precise and indeed austere education. He studied Latin and Greek privately and continued his education at Naples where his father Don Ferdinando, became part of the King’s court and there received numerous honorific positions. Aware of the revolutionary ferment, Barrocco joined with those of the Neapolitan youth who were fighting for the liberty of the people. He became a senator during the formation of the Kingdom of Italy in the first Parliament of the Nation.
Barracco, encountering in Naples Giuseppe Fiorelli, the secretary of Conte Leopoldo and the director of the excavations at Cumae, was able to cultivate his passion for archaeological studies. The illustrious archaeologist, was nominated as Director of the Museum of Naples and gave the go ahead for new excavations at Pompeii, after the fall of the Bourbon reign. Fiorelli was generous in his advice and help to the young collector, who, as well as having acquired a vast library, including texts by Aeschylus, Virgil, Homer and others, was turning his attention to the acquisition of works of art.
Barracco lead an intense political life, and when, in 1860, his family contributed to the costs incurred by Garibaldi in liberating the Kingdom, Barrocco began his public career. In 1861, at only 32, he was elected deputy to the Italian Parliament, as representative of the electoral colleges of Spezzano Calabro and Crotone. After a short period in which the Historic Right came to power, he returned to the Chamber from 1880 to 1886 when he was nominated Senator. As a senator, until 1904, he participated in the restructuring of the Palazzo Madama, designed and directed by the architect Koch.
Barracco became a collector on his arrival in Rome in 1870. He rented an apartment in Via del Corso 160, near to Montecitorio. His house was composed of a generous entrance hall which opened onto a huge salon, to which his studio was annexed. The salon and entrance hall gave access to his bedroom upstairs. This room was dominated by a painting by Piero da Cosimo depicting The Magdalena. This work, as Barrocco wrote in one of his publications, was donated to the National Gallery of Modern Art in the Palazzo Barberini. Barracco acquired works of art both on the antiquities market and from the major excavations in which the city was involved. Barracco, in forming his collection, made use of the advice of several experts, such as Wolfgang Helbig, director of the German Archaeological Museum and Ludwig Pollak, a celebrated art expert; who Barracco placed them around the building, each equipped with a base or display case. In 1892 the first museum catalogue was published, complied by Giovanni Barracco and Wolfgang Helbig and dedicated to Queen Margherita.
Barracco, a writer of essays and letters, of which the Museum conserves copies in its archives, cultivated many interests in his long and intense life: he climbed Mont Blanc and the Pink Mountain, and was one of the founders of the Italian Alpine Club.
Barracco, as a political man was also involved in the safeguarding of Cultural Assets, and participated in drafting the Coppino Laws, and drafting the Archaeological Walks of Rome project.
As he had no direct heirs Barrocco decided to donate his collection to the City of Rome, which created him a member of the Honorary Citizenship of Rome and gave him an area for the collection, on the Corso Vittorio Emanuele II opposite S. Giovanni of the Florentines. The Museum was designed by Gaetano Koch, to resemble a Greek temple. At Barracco’s wish it was called the Museum of Ancient Sculpture and it was the first Italian museum to have central heating. Barrocco imposed various display requirements on Koch’s work, as a result of which the building was equipped with ample windows to illuminate the works correctly and turnable stands for the sculpture so that it could be seen from all sides. The museum was also provided with Barracco’s personal library. The museum was not laid out in chronological order, but as a volumetric space of shapes and weights. Barracco looked after the museum for about ten years, transferring it to Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, and adding to the collection in collaboration with Ludwig Pollak, who became director of the Museum. Pollak’s diaries, which are conserved in the Museum, are a revealing document for the history of the Museum. The Municipality of Rome decided to destroy the Museum in 1938 as part of the completion of the Corso Vittorio. The collection was given refuge first in the Osteria dell’Orso and then in the storehouses of the Capitoline Museums, where it remained until 1948, when Antonio Maria Colini and Carlo Pietrangeli, Director and Inspector of the Fine Arts of the Municipality of Rome relocated it to its current home: the Farnesina Palace on the Street of the Trunk makers. In 1914 Giovanni Barracco died, leaving instructions in his will that his heirs should acquire certain publications for the Museum’s library and that Pollak should remain its Director. The Baron’s testimonary wishes were published in the Acts of the Magistrate’s Court of Rome of the 5th March 1914 and included the inventory of all the collection.