In 2025, the exhibition Myth and Marble: Ancient Roman Sculpture from the Torlonia Collection will mark the debut of the Torlonia Collection in North America. Curated by Lisa Ayla Çakmak and Katherine A. Raff, it will be hosted by some of the most prestigious museum institutions: Art Institute of Chicago (15 March – 29 June 2025); Kimbell Art MuseumFort Worth, Texas (September 13 – January 25, 2025); Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (March – July 2026).
The exhibition will lead to North America some of the greatest masterpieces of the Collection: from the famous portrait busts to monumental and mythological figures, from the extraordinary cups to the sarcophagi and sculpted reliefs. Nearly sixty sculptures from the 5th century BC to the 2nd century AD studied and restored by the Foundation specifically for the exhibitionmost dating back to the Imperial Age period, the pinnacle of ancient Roman artistic innovation. Of particular note will be the restoration of twenty-seven works for the occasion by the Torlonia laboratorieswhich are added to the twelve restored for the exhibition just ended at the Louvre for a total of over 150 sculptures restored in recent years. Overall, this is an unprecedented cultural operation, which will give the North American public the opportunity to discover the most important private collection of ancient Roman sculpture in the world.
“The Foundation is thrilled to share it with North American audiences for the first time
ano the Torlonia Collection. This exceptional set of ancient sculptures is a testament to the enduring cultural legacy of ancient Rome, as well as the vision and passion of multiple generations of the Torlonia family,” he said Alessandro Poma Murialdopresident of the Torlonia Foundation. For Carlotta Loverini Bottadirector of the Torlonia Foundation, “the cosmopolitan spirit that has always characterized classical art must continue to be cultivated even among the youngest. It is a universal language that thrives on the continuous reinvention of classics, placing them in dialogue with modern culture, a vision brilliantly highlighted by the curatorial approach of Lisa Ayla Çakmak and Katherine A. Raff.” In parallel with the exhibition activity, thanks to the support of Bvlgari, the restoration, study and cataloging of the Collection proceeds in the Torlonia Laboratories, under the High Supervision of the 
Special Superintendency of Rome. In this context, the Torlonia Foundation has chosen to open the doors of its exceptional spaces to scholars for 2025, in full harmony with the key principles of the Foundation’s mission. In this vein, the cataloging and digitization of all the works in the Collection will also continue in 2025: a crucial tool for reading and studying the individual artefacts which will be made available to everyone through the site. “The Bvlgari Foundation perpetuates and amplifies a mission that has always been part of the brand’s DNA. A commitment to building a magnificent future with lasting value in the fields of art and advocacy, education, philanthropy and inclusion, as well as the transmission of savoir-faire,” he said Jean-Christophe BabinCEO of Bvlgari Group. “The collaboration with the Torlonia Foundation is the perfect testimony of this mission, aimed at the search for beauty and the conservation of what must be handed down from generation to generation,” he added. “The journey begins in Rome and continues in the United States and Canada. Once again, we are proudly alongside the Torlonia Foundation in this
unique journey of artistic rediscovery, bringing to light the incomparable beauty of one of the world’s most important private collections of ancient Roman sculptures, which includes some of the most famous statues of the Roman emperors”.
The study activity also includes the publication of Notebooks by Carlo Marchionni, architect chosen by Cardinal Albani to build Villa Albani Torlonia in Rome. It is a “diary” of the author’s sketches, in which both the human landscape of his relationships and the choices made on the individual works are reconstructed. Villa Albani is at the center of the three hundred pages of these precious volumes, but there is no shortage of sketches dedicated to the Lazio villas of Castelgandolfo and Anzio designed by Marchionni, stylistic antecedents of the Roman Villa. Published in a single volume and enriched by reproductions of all the drawings and historical apparatus of Professor Elisa Debenedetti, who recently passed away and who the Torlonia Foundation remembers with esteem and affection, the diary gives the public a highly evocative work capable of describing the behind the scenes of the creation of Villa Albani Torlonia.
With the aim of giving the public the opportunity to enjoy the Collection continuously, in 2025 the 
The Foundation also proposes a new exhibition in the spaces of the‘Antiquarium of Villa Albani Torlonia to Rome: a transversal project, concentrated on a selection of ancient and modern sculptures in colored marble. From the 1st century BC until late antiquity, in fact, an enormous quantity of colored marbles arrived in Rome from quarries located in all the provinces of the Empire: valuable marbles, some very rare, mostly used for the decoration of large public buildings and private residences. Columns, statues, reliefs, furnishing elements, used in the Middle Ages in new buildings or brought to light in recent excavations, are the object of passionate research by collectors and often used for new creations. The exhibition, curated by Professor Carlo Gasparri, therefore offers an insight into this specific type of sculpture, confirming for this space inaugurated last spring the role of a study space on the Collection open permanently and free of charge to the public from Tuesday to Sunday from 9am at 1pm.
As part of these activities and to protect the scientific rigor of its work, the Foundation finally announced the appointment of Carlo Gasparri as scientific coordinator, supported by the scientific committee chaired by Salvatore Settis and composed of Gabriele Galateri di Genola, Filippo Modulo, Carlo Ratti and Xavier Francesco Salomon.
The Torlonia Foundation, created at the behest of Prince Alessandro Torlonia with the aim of preserving and promoting the Torlonia Collection and Villa Albani Torlonia in Rome, announces a 2025 full of commitments including exhibitions, restorations and initiatives for the study and dissemination of its heritage . And he is preparing to bring his masterpieces to the world, as well as to open the restoration laboratories to professionals.
Carlo Franza