Dr. Roberta Piccinelli

Dr. Roberta Piccinelli completed her Ph.D. in Art History at the University of Teramo with a dissertation entitled: Communication and Documentary Research. Sources and Meta-sources on Art Collecting in Mantua (1630-1709).

Previously she was the curator of the Museo Civico Polironiano in San Benedetto Po (2001-2006) and between 1997 and 2002 she contributed to the “Progetto Gonzaga”, funded and coordinated by the International Centre for Art and Culture ‘Palazzo Te’. This project focused on a thorough analysis of archival documents in the “Domestic and Foreign Court Correspondence” filze housed in the Archivio di Stato in Mantua and on the creation of a digital archive for this historical and artistic data. The critical analysis on unpublished documentary sources on the art market and on the relations between the Gonzaga family and the most important European capitals, resulted in the publication of two volumes of correspondence with Florence and Milan. She has taught at the University of Teramo and now she is publishing a book based on unpublished inventories of Gonzaga Nevers with the title Collezionismo a corte. I Gonzaga Nevers e la “superbissima Galeria” di Mantova (1630-1707).

With the Medici Archive Project, she plans to develop her interest in art collecting, relations between courts, digital archives and meta-sources. She will work on the cardinal Maurice of Savoy through cross-reference diplomatic correspondence - not just between Turin and Rome - but also between Rome, Modena and Mantua and, most importantly, the correspondence of the ambassadors residing in Rome when Maurice was cardinal. This will allow her to shed light on the national and international standing of the House of Savoy: Maurice himself could be described as an ‘ambassador’ of the Savoy state and interacted with a range of similarly ranked clergymen on the European political scene of the first half of the Seventeenth Century.

Dr. Piccinelli is a member of ICOM (International Council of Museums).

BOOKS:

Collezionismo a corte. I Gonzaga Nevers e la “superbissima Galeria” di Mantova (1630-1707). Firenze, (forthcoming).

Santa Maria del Gradaro, with C. Bonora Previdi and S. Siliberti. Mantova, Sometti, 2004.

Le collezioni Gonzaga. Il carteggio tra Mantova e Milano (1563-1634) [The Gonzaga Collections. Correspondence between Mantua and Milan (1563-1624)]. Cinisello Balsamo (Milano), Silvana Editoriale, 2003.

Le collezioni Gonzaga. Il carteggio tra Firenze e Mantova (1554-1626) [The Gonzaga Collection. Correspondence between Florence and Mantua (1554-1626)]. Cinisello Balsamo (Milano), Silvana Editoriale, 2000.

ARTICLES:

“A fine di educazione e di diletto”: tendenze postmoderne dell’istituzione museale italiana, Annali del Dipartimento di Scienze della Comunicazione dell’Università di Teramo, Carocci, 2009 (in print).

Fonti e documenti per le fabbriche di Maderno e di Marmirolo [Sources and documents on the palaces of Maderno and Marmirolo], proceedings of the conference ‘Mantuan archival sources’ (22 April 2008), organized by the Politecnico di Milano University and coordinated by Marco Folin (forthcoming).

Index of names in R. Morselli (ed.), Vivere d’arte. Carriere e finanze nell’Italia moderna [Living on Art. Careers and Finances in Modern Italy], Carocci, Roma, 2007.

Catalogue entries ‘Farinati’ and ‘Arrivabene’ in Canossa 1077. Erschütterung der Welt. Geschichte, Kunst und Kultur am Aufgang der Romanik [Shocking the World. History, Art and Culture in the Rise of Romanesque Art], exhibition catagogue, Paderborn, Band II, München, 2006, pp. 484, 493-494.

Catalogue entries ‘Allori’, ‘Bugiardini’ and ‘Cigoli’, in F. Rossi (ed.), Cultura e memoria. Le collezioni d’arte del Gruppo BPU Banca [Culture and Memory. The Art Collections of the Bank Group BPU], Bergamo, Bolis Editore, 2006, pp. 44-46, 52.

L’inventario dei beni del cardinale Silvio Valenti Gonzaga (1756) [The Inventory of Cardinal Silvio Valenti Gonzaga (1756)], in R. Morselli and R. Vodret (eds.), Ritratto di una collezione. Pannini e la Galleria del cardinale Silvio Valenti Gonzaga [Portrait of a Collection. Pannini and the Gallery of Cardinal Silvio Valenti Gonzaga], catalogue of the exhibition in Mantua, Milano, Skira, 2005, pp. 325-352.

Morazzone alla corte dei Gonzaga. Precisazioni e novità dalle carte d’archivio mantovane [Morazzone at the Gonzaga Court. Specifications and new findings from archival documents in Mantua], in A. Spiriti (ed.), Pierfrancesco Mazzucchelli detto il Morazzone (1573-1626) Problemi e proposte [Pierfrancesco Mazzucchelli aka Il Morazzone (1573-1626). Problems and Suggestions’, conference proceedings (Morazzone-Varese, 15 marzo 2003), Varese, 2004, pp. 109-116.

Le testimonianze figurative di Matilde nel Cinquecento [Matilde of Canossa’s Imagery in the XVI Century], in P. Golinelli (ed.), I mille volti di Matilde. Immagini di un mito nei secoli [Matilde’s Thousand Faces. Pictures of a Myth throughout the Centuries], Milano, Federico Motta editore, 2003.

La Pieve di Coriano nel Quattrocento e Cinquecento, “la maggiore, la più bella e la più ampia fra quelle circostanti” [The Church of Pieve di Coriano in the XV and XVI Centuries], in P. Golinelli (ed.), Pieve di Coriano nella storia. Uomini, fatti e paesaggi di una Comunità sulle sponde del Po [The Church of Pieve di Coriano. Men, Facts and Landscapes of a Community on the Banks of the River Po], Mantova, Editoriale Sometti 2002, pp. 71-86.

Le facies del collezionismo artistico di Vincenzo Gonzaga [Perspectives on Vincenzo Gonzaga’s Art Collecting] in R. Morselli (ed.), Gonzaga. La Celeste Galeria. L’esercizio del collezionismo [Gonzaga. La Celeste Galeria. Practices of Art Collecting], catalogue of the exhibition in Mantua, Milano, Skira 2002, pp. 341-347.