NEW EXHIBITION

“Unbridled curiosity”
Twentieth-Century Masterpieces from the Collection of Leone Piccioni

Press Preview

13 November 2025 – 11.00

VATICAN MUSEUMS

Modern and Contemporary Art Collection, Rooms of the Borgia Tower

Vatican City, 10 November 2025 – As the Jubilee Year 2025 draws to a close, the Vatican Museums will open to the public “Unbridled curiosity”: Twentieth-Century Masterpieces from the Collection of Leone Piccioni, the result of a new, important donation that confirms the fruitful and continuous dialogue between the Institution and private collectors. The exhibition, curated by Micol Forti, director of the Vatican Museums Modern and Contemporary Art Collection, will open on Thursday 13 November 2025, in the Rooms of the Borgia Tower, presenting masterpieces from the collection of the Catholic intellectual Leone Piccioni (Turin 1925 – Rome 2018), donated to the Pope’s Museums by his children Gloria and Giovanni.

A writer, literary and art critic, academic, journalist, film director and deputy Director General of the RAI, Leone Piccioni defined his collection as “my pride and joy, my patrimony”, an epithet that clearly expresses the depth of the bond the intellectual had with every single work of this highly select collection of paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints by twentieth-century masters. Contemporary art always occupied a central place in his life, nurtured by encounters, interests and friendships. The main link between Leone and the Italian and international art world was the poet Giuseppe Ungaretti (Alexandria, Egypt 1888 – Milan 1970), with whom he graduated in Rome in 1948 and remained connected by an unbreakable friendship. Thanks to the poet, Piccioni’s cultural horizon broadened to include direct contacts with some of the representative voices of the twentieth century: Burri, Morandi, Guttuso, Carrà, Fautrier and Dorazio, all present in the exhibition with emblematic works reflecting the collector’s refined personal taste. This taste was refined over time due to his deepening interest in the sensibility of each individual artist and the relationships he forged with each of them. These special relationships are at the origin of this collection. Each exhibition space recounts and illuminates a specific aspect of its creation: the importance of human encounters, the richness of exchanges in the cultural circles that Piccioni frequented and which guide the choice of works, the variations of his refined, personal and never predictable taste.

Thus, the first room, Leone and “Ungà”: a meeting spanning two lifetimes, introduces and frames the birth of the collection within the context of the bond between Piccioni and Ungaretti, the true source of inspiration, focusing attention on some of the artists dearest to both of them: Maccari, Morandi, Guttuso, Severini and Fautrier. This is followed by the room dedicated to “L’Approdo” and the artistic environment of Forte dei Marmi, which presents some of the main protagonists of these two “places” of encounter and exchange, the first cultural, identified with the RAI newspaper, first radio (1944), then print (1952) and finally television (1963); the second a geographical location, a summer holiday destination for artists and intellectuals of the last century.

In the rooms Leone’s taste. Between realism and social interests and Leone’s taste. Original visions and spirit of nature, the public is welcomed into the heart of Piccioni’s critical sense and aesthetic choices: the first reflects his attentive gaze on reality, the human condition and social issues; the second reveals an attraction to “things of nature” translated into visionary, poetic and sophisticated works by artists of different stylistic backgrounds, from Manzù to Mafai, from Guarienti to Morlotti.

Links and Proximities is a more limited space dedicated to two Tuscan artists who are less known to the general public but were particularly loved by Leone and linked to him by a deep friendship: the sculptor Venturino Venturi and the painter Mario Marcucci, who rework the Christian iconographic tradition with extraordinary and innovative sensitivity.

The two rooms Teachers and friends. Figure, reality and abstraction and Teachers and friends. Rome in the 1970s demonstrate the breath of Leone’s aesthetic horizons and take their name from one of his best-known books, Maestri e amici (1969), in which he recounts his most significant encounters with some of the leading figures in twentieth-century culture and art: Burri, Afro, Capogrossi, Guttuso; and also Ceroli, Fioroni, Dorazio and Schifano.

Finally, the last room, Writings and Visions. Precious books, dedications and photographs, returns to the link with Ungaretti and offers a glimpse into the preciousness of some of the publications collected or received as gifts by Piccioni during his lifetime, which he kept in the vast library in his Roman home, now partly donated by his children to the Central State Archives together with his correspondence with intellectuals and artists.

“The exhibition also aims to pay tribute to Leone Piccioni on the occasion of the centenary of his birth. The Vatican Museums express their gratitude to his children Gloria and Giovanni for the generous bequest they have made to our institution”, said Barbara Jatta, Director of the Vatican Museums.

Opening hours

Open to the public: 14 November 2025 – 18 April 2026

From Monday to Saturday: from 8.00 to 20.00 (last entry 18.00)

Every last Sunday of the month: from 9.00 to 14.00 (last entry 12.30), Sunday and feast days: closed

ENTRY INCLUDED IN THE TICKET PRICE

ACCREDITATION PROCEDURE

Journalists and media operators who wish to participate must apply, no later than 24 hours before the event, via the Holy See Press Office online accreditation system, at: press.vatican.va/accreditamenti

INFORMATION

Vatican Museums Press Office: stampa.musei@scv.va- tel. 06 69883041. www.museivaticani.va
VATICAN MUSEUMS PRESS OFFICE: stampa.musei@scv.va – tel. 06 69883041