After serving as a director of the Historical Museum and Park of Miramare Castle in Trieste, Andreina Contessa has been appointed to lead the Galleria dell’Accademia and the Bargello Museums in Florence \u2013 two of the most important cultural institutions in Italy. This appointment is the latest in a series of acknowledgements of her career, which have been marked by a strong bond with Jewish culture and its enhancement through museum curation.
Contessa, an art historian and museologist, spent almost 30 years in Israel. She taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and directed the Umberto Nahon Museum of Italian Jewish Art. She moved back to Italy to assume the directorship of Miramare Castle in Trieste, one of Italy’s most visited historical museums. She has maintained her connection with Jewish culture by collaborating with the National Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah (MEIS) in Ferrara, for which she created the 2021 exhibition \u201cBeyond the Ghetto\u201d, curated with Simonetta Della Seta, Carlotta Ferrara degli Uberti, and Sharon Reichel, and dedicated to Jewish life beyond confinement.
\u201cI am very glad to hear this news,\u201d said the MEIS director, Rabbi Amedeo Spagnoletto, to Pagine Ebraiche. \u201cAndreina Contessa has collaborated with us for over a mandate. I really appreciated her work and the activities she promoted when she was in Jerusalem. Since then, our collaboration has never stopped. In fact, it has grown since she moved to Trieste.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even after her term on the Scientific Committee came to an end, Contessa has remained in constant dialogue with the museum in Ferrara. \u201cFor us, she is still a point of reference within and beyond the Jewish context,\u201d explained Rabbi Spagnoletto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Andreina Contessa\u2019s new appointment in Florence opens the possibility of further collaboration. \u201cWe hope that her leadership at the Galleria dell’Accademia and the Bargello Museums will lead to new initiatives. We have already developed some projects with the Uffizi and Palazzo Pitti, and I am sure that her passion, coupled with our good relationship, will make new agreements possible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"