The majolica collection of the Museum of Bargello

Nowadays art exhibitions cannot just show art objects, they need to involve visitors emotionally. Museum users are not just scholars and experts looking for facts; many visitors want emotions and multidisciplinary experiences. These new require- ments, together with the need to protect art collections from possible dangers (such as effect of time, natural disasters, and human attacks), mean that technology needs to play a crucial role in the design of an exhibition layout, which requires the involvement of many different technical and artistic fields of knowledge. This research is focused on the design of the majolica collection exhibited in the Bargello Museum in Florence, which was founded in 1865 as the first national museum in Italy. The current curators have to deal with a double need: i) to refresh the exhibition, in order to preserve the high profile of the museum, and to optimize the expressive potentiality of each exhibited object; and ii) to protect the art collections, ensuring each item’s safety. The Majolica Room is the next exhibition room to be renewed in the museum. The display dates from the 1980s and thus does not comply anymore with the current administrative requirements. The design of the new exhibition requires special attention, due to the fragility of the items and to their variety in terms of shape, dimensions, and relevance. The experience was developed within the RESIMUS research project (Viti and Tanganelli, 2019), focused on the resilience of art collections, and it involved didactic activity with students from the School of Architecture in Florence.