Filmed as part of the Spring 2021 Digital Research Seminars presented by scholars affiliated with the O’Donnell Institute’s Center for the Art and Architectural History of Port Cities in Naples.
12 February 2021
Dr. CARMINE ROMANO
Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte
Digitizing the collections of the Museo di Capodimonte: new insights, new discoveries, new stories to tell
In an era in which the circulation of information is increasingly rapid and far-reaching, new technologies allow for the comprehensive cataloguing and digitization of cultural heritage, and the communication of that information to a worldwide audience.
The history of art has long been linked to photography, and high-definition images represent a revolution in the discipline. Comfortably seated at our computers, we can observe iconographic details, individual motifs, brushstrokes, and the consistencies of materials, extending the potential of the human eye. But digitization has also become a means to study and deepen the information related to a work, allowing us to create new connections and rebuild paths that tell us stories not yet told.
This is exactly what is happening in the digitization project of the works of art held at the Museo di Capodimonte, a vast and complex undertaking that aims to share knowledge and open new avenues for study and research. Furthermore, the digitization of ancient inventories and historical documents held at the Royal Palace, as well as the digitization of new sources found in the State Archives and in the Historical Archives of the Banco diNapoli, have become the solid documentary basis for the reorganization and restoration of the period rooms at Capodimonte. In this seminar, Dr. Carmine Romano will use videos, images, and documents to present the digitization project and the methodology behind it.
BIO
Dr. Carmine Romano is an art historian with a background in materials engineering and conservation of cultural heritage. He has curated several exhibitions, including one on Picasso and the Russian ballets at MuCem in Marseilles, and one on the sculptor Vincenzo Gemito at the Petit Palais in Paris and the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte in Naples. He has collaborated on museum installations of Neapolitan crèche collections at the Art Institute of Chicago and at Capodimonte. His publications include several collection catalogues and two monographs on the Neapolitan crèche published by Yale and Grimaldi. Since 2018, he has been in charge of the Digitization and Digital Cataloguing project at Capodimonte, which aims to inventory, catalogue, and share online the works preserved in the museum. The project began with an exhibition and related conference called Depositi di Capodimonte: Storie ancora da scrivere, which brought together works held in storage and never before shown in the museum. The project has now extended to the study of the archives and the historical sources of the Royal Palace.