Exclusive offers and news in Rome

A constellation of masterpieces returns to shine after a journey through time and the conservation studio: paintings, artifacts, textiles, and machines that span 35 centuries of Italian art, handed back to the present with renewed clarity. This is the outcome of the twentieth edition of Restituzioni, the triennial program by Intesa Sanpaolo which, since 1989, has safeguarded over 2.200 works from public collections and now presents 128 restorations, 117 of them gathered for the first time in a single exhibition narrative. The itinerary pairs iconic names with unexpected marvels: from Giovanni Bellini, Giulio Romano, Battistello Caracciolo, Luca Giordano, Mario Sironi, and Pino Pascali to a nineteenth-century draisienne from Gallarate, from a Milanese planetary machine to a samurai bow and a Siamese boat preserved in Agliè, all the way to “Charleston” dresses and sacred vestments made with hummingbird feathers - extraordinary intersections of art, technique, and ritual. Among the monumental interventions stand out the frescoes of Castelseprio, returned to a crisper legibility. The selection arises from the joint work of state heritage authorities and public and diocesan owners, under the scholarly direction of Giorgio Bonsanti, Carla Di Francesco, and Carlo Bertelli (curator emeritus). In an international dialogue, Brussels’ IRPA carried out the restoration of the Retable of the Adoration of the Magi from Milan’s Church of Santi Apostoli e Nazaro Maggiore. Restituzioni 2025 is not merely a balance sheet of restorations: it is a living atlas of how conservation can generate new knowledge.