Milano. Nike of Samothrace: the restoration of the historical cast in collaboration with the Botticino Restoration School.

It was presented on the evening of Tuesday 30 January 2024, theagreement stipulated between Valore Italia – School of Restoration of Botticino and the National Museum of Science and Technology of Milano, on the occasion of the presentation of the restoration of the historical cast of the Nike of Samothrace, preserved inside the Naval Air Pavilion of the Museum.

Sculpture, a life-size plaster cast of the renowned Nike exhibited at the Louvre Museum in Paris, was restored by the students of the Botticino School under the supervision of Professor Cinzia Parnigoni between September and November 2023.

This project marks the beginning of the collaboration between the Museum and the restoration school, which will continue with interventions on other works.

The cast of the Nike, one of the most fascinating testimonies of Hellenistic art, displayed alongside the most iconic objects from the world of navigation, It has been part of the Museum's collections since 1964, probably created a few years earlier by Cesare Gariboldi, heir to the generations of Milanese master educators, from Piero Pierotti to Carlo Campi, whose works were requested by Academies of Fine Arts and Italian and foreign museums between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century.

Sculpture is at the center of historical, artistic and archival studies, aimed at investigating the role and history of the use of casts during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which were an important teaching tool for the Academies of Fine Arts of the time, and today continue to be an intermediary for making works of art all over the world, also with a museographic function.

The aim of the intervention was to remove the dangers deriving from the disconnection of the individually made and assembled elements, specifically the wings, and give a more homogeneous aesthetic vision of the work. On this occasion, qualitative scientific analyzes were also carried out to investigate the constituent materials of the sculpture.

The sculpture, exhibited in the Air and Naval Pavilion, has been part of the Museum's collection since the 60s, following a donation.

The meeting was introduced by the Councilor for Culture of the Municipality of Milano Tommaso Sacchi and by the Deputy Director of the National Science and Technology Museum Barbara Soresina.

"The collections that the Museum preserves and continues to acquire constitute one extraordinary resource for research and training, in the most diverse disciplinary fields. Even in activities dedicated to the conservation of assets, the Museum encourages collaborations that focus on critical in-depth analysis, broken down into the skills necessary for each project. A further value that we promote is intergenerational comparison, from which new practices and knowledge can emerge" said Laura Ronzon, Director of Collections of the National Museum of Science and Technology in the opening speech.

“We are extremely satisfied with the result that has been achieved. In the year of the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the Botticino School it is for us it is a source of great pride to be able to start a solid collaboration with one of the most important and prestigious Italian museum institutions in the world which daily enriches the cultural and educational offering of our country" this is what Martino Troncatti, President of Valore Italia, said.

They spoke during the evening Claudio Giorgione, Curator of the Leonardo Art and Science Museum, Marianna Cappellina, Responsible for conservation and restoration of the Museum e Cinzia Parnigoni, Teacher at the Botticino School. Finally, some students from the Botticino School talked about the restoration operations carried out on the work.

During the event, which took place in the evocative ballroom of the transatlantic Conte Biancamano, the work of the artist Andrea Crespi was exhibited, portraying the Nike of Samothrace in a contemporary guise. Through the use of optical illusion, infinite lines that never touch invade the work: past, present and future merge, showing how distant eras can be close and connected.