Krzysztof Pomian will receive the University’s Sigillum Magnum

Krzysztof Pomian - Copyright: Francesca Mantovani Éditions Gallimard

On Friday 24 March, at 5 pm, in the Aula Absidale di Santa Lucia (Via de' Chiari, 25/A - Bologna), the awards ceremony will be held in which Krzysztof Pomian, a Polish scholar, who identified a rich field of research in the history of culture and its institutions, bringing together the original contributions of various humanistic and social disciplines, will receive the University’s Sigillum Magnum. His tireless commitment to promoting European cultural heritage should also be mentioned.

The event is open to both the Unibo community and the general public: professional staff, lecturers, grant holders and research fellows can register on the event website; admission for students and the general public is free subject to the availability of places via the entrance in via de' Chiari 25/a, Bologna. It will also be possible to follow the ceremony in live streaming on the Unibo YouTube channel.

After the welcome speech by Rector Giovanni Molari, Professor Roberto Balzani will present the scholar, who will then give a lecture entitled "Aldrovandi and curiosity. From Bayle to Buffon" before being presented with the University’s Sigillum Magnum.

The ceremony is the highlight of the cultural programme prepared by the University together with its Museum Network to mark the five hundredth anniversary of Aldrovandi (1522-2022), given that Krzysztof Pomian has spent many years focusing his attention on Ulisse Aldrovandi and his first experimental scientific museum. He is renowned for having been the first person to study collecting as a phenomenon in itself, thereby helping to establish a semantic and epistemological field that is widely recognised today. His recent work on the world history of museums has expanded the field of research even further, linking objects, places and containers as a tribute to a form of intergenerational transmission of memory and social fruition of knowledge that is becoming increasingly common throughout the world.

We will actually talk with Mr. Pomian about the museum institution and its relationship with present-day society on the evening before the ceremony, Thursday 23 March, at 5.30 pm, in the Giorgio Prodi Lecture Hall at the Department of History and Cultures (Piazza San Giovanni in Monte, 2 - Bologna). The title of the meeting will be "The museum. A world history. Reflections on the contemporary museum starting from the work of Krzysztof Pomian" The meeting will be attended by Professor Francesca Sofia, head of the Department of History and Cultures, Professor Giuliana Benvenuti, Delegate for Cultural Heritage, Professor Roberto Balzani, President of the University Museum Network, Michele Lanzinger, Chair of ICOM Italia, Laura Moro, Director of the Central Institute for the Digitization of Cultural Heritage – Digital Library of the Ministry of Culture and Salvatore Settis, Professor emeritus at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa.

Krzysztof Pomian was born in Warsaw in 1934 and emigrated to France in 1973 for political reasons. He has spent his entire career at CNRS, the French National Centre for Scientific Research in Paris, teaching at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, the École du Louvre, the University of Geneva and other foreign universities. He is known for his publication Collectors and curiosities (Paris and Venice 1500-1800, Paris, Gallimard, 2004). His great work, The museum. A world history, was published by Éditions Gallimard in three volumes Du trésor au musée (From the treasury to the museum) (2020), L’ancrage européen 1789-1850 (The European anchoring 1789-1850) (2021), À la conquête du monde 1850-2020 (Conquering the world 1850-2020) (2022), in the Bibliothèque illustrée des histoires collection. The Italian edition of the work is being published by Einaudi.