The talks of Jean-Luc Martinez and Maria Serlupi Crescenzi for Museology and Values
Therefore, let’s finish the telling of the speeches of our keynote speakers, discovering together what will speak about Jean-Luc Martinez, Director of theLouvre and Maria Serlupi Crescenzi, Curator of the Decorative Arts Department of the Vatican Museums.
“Unity in Diversity”: One Louvre, Several Louvre Museums in the 21st Century
<<The title of my speech today recalls the motto of the European Union, In varietate concordia, united in diversity. This motto is intended to evoke how Europeans came together after the Second World War and created the European Union to work for peace and prosperity and thus to enrich the diverse cultures, traditions, and languages of the Continent. I am not going to discuss politics here, but please allow me to comment that in my view this ambition is very close to what should be the mission of universal museums, which today must be redefined.
It is a time when museums, which are sanctuaries of the humanities, have an essential role to play in helping everyone to a greater appreciation of the reality of their culture. This is a necessary precursor to opening up to the other and to recognizing the oneness of human nature.>>
Jean-Luc Martinez
The search for Beauty, Truth and Good in the Vatican Museums
<<It gives me great pleasure to participate in this conference which, besides honouring this European Year of Cultural Heritage stands out commendably from innumerable precedent initiatives, promoted by different institutions with educational purposes, in its attempt to delineate the identity and mission of the contemporary museum.
It moves decisively from the visual angle, leaving aside the boring diatribe wanting to assert the primacy of the managerial aspect of the museum at the expense of artistic and conservation aspects, which ploughs an unbridgeable furrow between two different schools of thought, in order to solicit reflection on the potential ethical facet of a museum. If we ask ourselves the question, “Is it possible to believe that twenty-first century museums are able to mould in their visitors minds a sense of the dignity of the human individual by means of the way in which they show their art?”, the reply from the Vatican Museums cannot be anything but a resounding affirmative, considering the its paramount identity as the “Museums of the Pope”.>>
Maria Serlupi Crescenzi
