Ambrosiana
NOVEMBER 25 CRYOPT OF SAN SEPOLCRO CLOSED
25/11/2025-25/11/2025
Milan, July 28 – Milan and Naples, the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana and the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte: two cities and two museum institutions, each with deeply distinct histories and identities, come together in a single joint project, Classical Collapse, by artist Nicola Samorì. The project moves beyond the logic of a ‘dual exhibition,’ presenting itself instead as a single, unified cultural undertaking conceived from the outset to unfold in two venues in dialogue with one another.
Curated by Demetrio Paparoni, Alberto Rocca (Director of the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana) and Eike Schmidt (Director of the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte), this exhibition – at the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana from November 28, 2025 through January 13, 2026 and at the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte from November 29, 2025 through March 1, 2026 – stands as a bridge between North and South, between antiquity and contemporaneity, between the past of the great pictorial and sculptural tradition with its reinvention in the present.
The Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan’s oldest museum and custodian of the city’s visual memory—a city of reason, order and systematic thought—meets the Museo di Capodimonte, set within the vibrant topography of Naples and embodying a sensual, Baroque heritage. Two complementary poles of Italy’s artistic history come together to host a single, multifaceted reflection: one that questions the very status of tradition, the vitality of its form and the possibility of placing it in tension with a contemporary gaze.
Each museum becomes not a mere setting, but a lens through which to trace the same thematic path: an invitation to look, and to look again, at the classical from multiple perspectives.
“The Ambrosiana continues its exploration of the dialogue between the ancient and the contemporary, in search of the deepest roots of artistic creation. The encounter between our collections and the works of Nicola Samorì seeks to raise new and meaningful questions before the public—questions about a humanity in constant and dramatic transformation. We are delighted to collaborate with the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte in this endeavor,” states Andrea Canova, President of the Congregation of the Conservators of the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana.
Through more than fifty of Samorì’s works, presented alongside numerous masterpieces selected from the collections of both museums, Nicola Samorì/Classical Collapse stages an intense confrontation between the history of art and its rewritings, in a dialogue in which time ceases to serve as boundary or frame, instead opening fissures that continually compromise its legibility. So-called classical art and its ongoing metamorphosis lie at the heart of this dual exhibition, which—though articulated across two distinct venues—is conceived as a single, unified project guided by the same underlying ideas.
On December 2 come to the Pinacoteca for an individual evening visit and a brass concert in the Sala Federiciana!
