Naples to showcase a pre-Columbian Art exhibition

Naples - It is the first time that an exhibition of pre-Columbian Art travels to the South of Italy. The National Archaeological Museum of Naples will host an exhibition entitled "Il mondo che non c'era" (The World that Never was), displaying 200 extraordinary pieces from the collection of archaeologist and palaeontologist Giuliano Ligabue, who died in 2015. The exhibition, promoted by the Giuliano Ligabue Foundation, opened on June 15 and will run until October 30.

The exhibition is a journey across the Mesoamerican cultures spanning from Mexico through Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador, including the Olmec, the Aztecs, and the Maya. It also reaches out to the Andean culture of the Inca civilization. "Il mondo che non c'era" is the result of a passion of a lifetime that started fifty years ago with a mask from Mexico City - a city that had 200,000 inhabitants in 600 a.C.. Ligabue's son Inti continues in his father's footsteps. Today we can enjoy the objects that in a remote past added beauty to the lives of the nobles or exhalted their solemn religious ceremonies, thanks to "the flourishing of major European collections during the Renaissance. The Medici family, who ruled over Florence, was among the first patrons of the art to create a private collection that in mid 16th cent. already included objects from Mexico," pointed out Jaques Blazy, the curator of the exhibition.

"The native populations who inhabited Mesoamerica and South America before the arrival of the Spanish conquerors remained almost totally unknown to Europe until the 19th cent. As a result the discovery of the New World can be considered as a 'contemporary adventure'," he concluded. Inti Ligabue said:"My father taught me how exciting it is to collect the works of art of these people who had no voice. You become a poet that narrates their lives."

The exhibition, which opened in Naples after it stopped in Florence and Rovereto, is an opportunity to understand the key-role Spain played in boosting Europe's economy and cultural recovery through its presence in the New World. It is in Naples that the Spanish Court introduced some staples such as cocoa, tomato and potatoes that are now fundamental ingredients of our traditional cuisine. Ligabue's collection contains very rare artworks like stone masks from Teotihuacan, the largest Mesoamerican city, Mayan vases of the classical period, Olmec anthropomorphic figurines, Mezcala sculptures, goldworks and fabrics. The exhibition also shows how much the Old World owes to the New World in terms of economic progress.