Il tesoro invisibile

‘What is exposed on the surface is only the tip of the iceberg. These deposits are dreamlike places, suspended in an atmosphere of almost transcendental waiting.’

Thousands of works of inestimable value are kept hidden from the public eye in the museum storehouses. Paintings, engravings, sculptures, jewels, ancient documents and symbolic objects capable of giving us the flavour of distant eras, lie invisible to the millions of tourists who visit Italy every year. In the ceilings of ancient noble palaces or in the chaotic archives of museum institutes, in underground vaults or in tiny monasteries, lies another Italy, rich in wonders, sometimes rediscovered after centuries of oblivion. Filippo Cosmelli and Daniela Bianco open the doors to these places. In search of hidden masterpieces, they guide us in the secret archives of the Vatican, among the excavations of Oplontis, for the rooms of Palazzo Barberini in Rome or Palazzo Mocenigo in Venice, recomposing an incredible forgotten collection. Some works are not exposed to preserve their integrity, to protect them from temperature changes or the risk of being damaged, but others simply do not find a place among the thousands of pieces that make up the historical and artistic heritage exhibited in the museums. But all of them deserve to be seen and appreciated.

From Leonardo’s Vitruvian man, kept in a private room at the Museo dell\’Accademia to the basement of the Borghese Gallery, from the engravings of Piranesi stored in the armored warehouse of the Calcografia Nazionale in Rome, up to the mysterious objects like the first high heels shoes worn by Venetian women in the ‘600 or the Oplontis treasure found among the ruins o Pompei.A unique grand tour conducted by exceptional guides, a unique and exclusive experience to the discovery of the inaccessible treasures that make our artistic and cultural history.

– The Uffizi Gallery currently exhibits 2,409 works and preserves 2,633 in the warehouses. Another 2,450 are located in external locations such as embassies or other.

– The Egyptian Museum of Turin exhibits about six thousand artifacts and preserves thirty thousand in the deposits.

– Palazzo Madama in Rome exhibits less than a tenth of its collections or five thousand works out of a total of seventy thousand.

– The Gallery of Modern Art of Turin in 150 years of existence has collected fifty thousand works, but currently exhibits 250 to the public.