European Heritage Days: Brescia Musei initiatives for Saturday and Sunday

Brescia. Fondazione Brescia Musei adheres to the largest and most popular cultural event in Europe, this year dedicated to the theme ‘Heritage on the move’ The European Heritage Days are back: an invitation to reflect on the value of cultural heritage that makes relations and exchanges between peoples and cultures possible and contributes to the formation of community identity Books, workshops, shows, and a new intriguing and entertaining Art Route through the city’s museums
On Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 September, Fondazione Brescia Musei adheres to the European Heritage Days (EGP): the largest and most popular cultural event in Europe, coordinated by the Ministry of Culture. This year’s theme, ‘Heritage on the move’, takes up the European slogan ‘Routes, Networks and Connections’: an invitation to reflect on the value of cultural heritage in relation to paths, routes, connections and networks that, today or in the past, have made relations and exchanges between peoples and cultures possible and contributed to the formation of our identity.
Many events are scheduled for the weekend. The dense programme begins on Saturday 28 September, at 11 a.m., when Fondazione Brescia Musei, in collaboration with the Teatro Telaio, proposes at the Roman Theatre – and in the event of rain in the Coro delle Monache – a special theatrical performance for families with children aged 5 and up: Ulisse dove sei? As part of the Unesco heritage promotion, and in particular of the Roman Theatre of ancient Brixia, the show – realised thanks to the contribution of the Lombardy Region – recounts the myth and adventures of Ulysses, still a fascinating story. The aim is to enliven and make concrete the epic tale through the performance, set in a monumental archaeological context, which in antiquity had precisely this function. The performance will have a special performance dedicated exclusively to primary schools and 1st year secondary schools (first year) scheduled for Monday 30, at 11 a.m., to which schools can register free of charge by calling or writing to Cupdi Fondazione Brescia Musei.
In the afternoon, at 5.30 p.m. in the Sala delle Danze at the Mo.Ca, authors Marco Merlo and Sara Scalia will present their latest book La Storia del Castello di Brescia dal Medioevo all’Ottocento (Skira), in which, between investigation, history and systematic analysis of cartographic documentation, they have tackled the study of the Castle of Brescia, a complex monument in which the building phases have been stratified over the centuries, marking the main events of the city, from the age of the free Comune to the Unification of Italy. With its 75,000 square metres, the Brescia fortress is one of the largest in Europe: a unique construction, in which a modern system of walls and bastions developed around the keep from the Visconti era, making it one of the most imposing defensive structures on the Venetian mainland. The written and iconographic sources, placed in dialogue with the ancient maps, which in turn have been reread and reinterpreted with the aid of digital technology, provide an accurate philological reconstruction, rich in photographic documentation and capable of revealing some previously unpublished or little-known aspects of a fascinating and extraordinarily articulated history.
Sunday 29 September will instead be the day dedicated to the presentation of the new format that Fondazione Brescia Musei has devised precisely on the basis of the stimulus raised by the theme of Heritage Days: an original Art Route, which develops and allows us to relate our highest treasures in the collections of the five civic museums, with the principle of Museums spread throughout a very rich urban fabric that in turn is part of the heritage and that thanks to the walk can be experienced, enjoyed and appreciated.
This has resulted in an itinerary, developed by the collectors together with the Foundation’s cultural planners and which envisages, as is good practice for all cultural visits in a city, starting from the highest point – for Brescia the Castle – both for an overall view, but also to start from the Luigi Marzoli Weapons Museum, located right in the city’s Mastio.
The 150 participants – a limited number to allow for the fluidity of the route through the museums – will be given a map of the route on which the highlights for each museum site are identified – easily recognisable on site thanks to dedicated graphics – and must be registered with a photograph taken with their personal smartphones as evidence of their passage through the checkpoint to win the stamp of the relevant museum. Three hours are imagined for the itinerary, starting at 10 a.m., and there are two game modes: timed or spread out over the day.
Three hours have been imagined to cover the itinerary, starting at 10 a.m., and there are two ways of playing the game: timed or staggered over the course of the day.
From the Castle, the public will have to move to the Museum of Santa Giulia passing through the medieval via Piamarta to conclude the route at the Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo, where, by showing the collected stamps, the ‘marathon runners’ will receive as a gift a publishing kit consisting of three important volumes published by the Fondazione Brescia Musei, an invitation to continue, with more extended times, the deepening of the collections seen.
An all-culture challenge for those who love to move through art, but also an opportunity for Fondazione Brescia Musei to test a new playful way of visiting, which, thanks to the Museum Pass, will make it possible to enrich the cultural offer of the city’s museum sites in a stable way.
In the afternoon, at 3.30 p.m., at the Museo di Santa Giulia, families with children aged 6 to 11 in possession of the Abbonamento Musei Lombardia (Lombardy Museum Pass) will be able to take part in the workshop Una fame da barbaro! (A barbarian hunger!), to discover the food and eating habits of the Lombards. The workshop retraces the most significant stages of the long migration route that brought the Lombards to Italy, highlighting the variations in their diet derived from the contact and influences of the cultures of the peoples they encountered and the resources of the territories they crossed. The experience concludes with the reconstruction, using artificial materials, of typical Longobard foods, in reality the result of different cultural contaminations.
The GEP programme concludes on Sunday at 5.30 p.m. in the Sala delle Danze at Mo.Ca. with the presentation of the volume Dal Municipio alla Patria Italiana. Lotte e culture politiche a Brescia (1792-1802), presented by the author Marco Bazzani, in dialogue with Enrico Valseriati. In the spring of 1796, while Bonaparte’s armies were bringing about the rapid collapse of the peninsula’s centuries-old states, Venetian domination in the Brescia area was coming to an end. Within a few of the city’s residences, a handful of young men were weaving a plot against the Dominant, after they had been intolerant of its rule for years. Through the study of vast, hitherto unpublished documentation, the book starts from the moment when these figures manifested their dissent, in order to gain an in-depth understanding of their motivations and whether short-term instances, spread across the European continent by the wind of the French Revolution, were more inspiring than the long-standing local political tensions. This sheds new light on the real goals of the conspirators, as well as on their political culture, debunking the mythologising that has been done of this affair, even in historiography. At the same time, the work examines the political apprenticeship of those who had hitherto been excluded from public life, now called to the difficult task of catechising the population to bring them closer to democratic and republican principles. The analysis of the parallel lives of these characters, so different that they often came into conflict, makes it possible to follow the slow and troubled process that led them to abandon the ‘small homeland’ to embrace the ‘Italian homeland’.
The appointments:
♦ Saturday 28 September, 11 a.m., Roman Theatre: Brixia. Archaeological Park of Roman Brescia.
♦ Monday 30 September, 11 a.m., replica for schools: ‘Ulisse dove sei?’. Theatre performance. Free participation with compulsory booking at CUP +39 030 817 4200 | cup@bresciamusei.com The show is proposed in repetition for primary schools and for the first year of secondary school on Monday 30 September, at 11 a.m., with prior booking at CUP.
♦ Saturday 28 September, 5.30 p.m., Sala delle Danze, Mo.Ca. Book presentation: ‘La Storia del Castello di Brescia dal Medioevo all’Ottocento’, presented by authors Marco Merlo and Sara Scalia, in dialogue with Elisa Sala. Free participation.
♦ Sunday 29 September, from 10 a.m. ‘Art marathon’. Meeting and departure: 10.00 a.m. Museo delle Armi Luigi Marzoli. 10.40 a.m. Museo del Risorgimento Leonessa d’Italia. 11.30 a.m. Descent from the Castle along the church of San Pietro in Oliveto through via Piamarta and entrance to the Museo di Santa Giulia. 12.15 p.m. Through the Unesco corridor we continue to visit the archaeological park. 13.00 Crossing of Piazza del Foro in the direction of the Tosio Martinengo Art Gallery.
Free participation with compulsory booking at CUP +39 030 817 4200 | cup@bresciamusei.com
♦ Sunday 29 September, 3.30 p.m., Museo di Santa Giulia. ‘Una fame da barbaro’. The food and eating habits of the Lombards. Workshop for children aged 6 to 11 – reserved for Abbonamento Musei. Information: Meeting point at the Santa Giulia Museum. Duration: approx. 1.30 hours.