Franco Minissi: il museografo, l'architetto e gli allestimenti del Museo Civico di Viterbo

The volume is a collection of lectures delivered during the Conference organized by Università degli Studi della Tuscia in 2019, on the occasion of the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of architect Franco Minissi in Viterbo. Franco Minissi was the head of the first academic course in Museography in Italy, at the Faculty of Architecture in Rome. After World War II, he became an authoritative figure in Italian museography and museology. He managed several museum display projects, especially in Rome, the Lazio Region, Sicily, and Southern Italy, and various original and innovative projects involving the covering, protection, and restoration of ancient monuments, often on behalf of the Istituto Centrale per il Restauro of Rome. In spite of the massive extent of his work, characterized by the consistency of its language and the originality of its creations, Minissi has not received the same amount of attention and appreciation as architects Carlo Scarpa and Franco Albini, who performed similar work in the same years and who, in the last decades, have become the object of numerous studies, pieces of research, publications, and even exhibitions. In order to fill this void in sector studies and generate further interest around Minissi, the volume was divided into three interconnected parts. The first part consists of a biographical and professional profile of the architect, revolving around Minissi’s academic activity and his collaboration with Cesare Brandi. The second part deals with museography and is based on the reinterpretation of some of his famous museum display projects, such as the ones carried out at the Etruscan Museum in Villa Giulia, Rome, and the Archaeological Museum of Agrigento. The last part focuses mainly on two museum displays projects for the Museo Civico “Luigi Rossi Danielli” of Viterbo, which were managed by Minissi in the last century’s mid-Fifties and beginning of the Nineties. Both these projects are thoroughly described, based on archived documents, pictures, design drawings stored at the State Archive of Rome and articles published on specialized journals and the local press. Moreover, the volume, thanks to the work and contribution of professors and students from the Tuscia University, is aimed at starting a reflection on the future of the Museo Civico of Viterbo and on the balance to be achieved between protection, preservation, and promotion activities.2n