Stefano Casciu
An art historian from Cagliari, he studied in Florence under Mina Gregori, delving into the themes of collecting and artistic patronage of the Medici family, particularly the last of the family, Electress Palatine Anna Maria Luisa. His studies and writings are mainly devoted to late Medici Florence, art at the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (particularly still life and sculpture), and the collecting and patronage of ancient Italian dynasties. Since 1990 he has served in the Ministry of Cultural Heritage with assignments in Arezzo (director of the Museum of Medieval and Modern Art and in charge of the territories of Cortona and Sansepolcro; restoration staff of the Legend of the True Cross by Piero della Francesca); Florence (official of the Palatine Gallery and director of the Medici Villas of Petraia, Castello and Poggio a Caiano); Modena and Reggio Emilia (Superintendent until 2015, director of the Galleria Estense in Modena and the Palazzo Ducale in Sassuolo); Mantua (Superintendent in 2011); and again Florence (since 2015 Director of the Polo Museale della Toscana, now the Regional Directorate National Museums of Tuscany, which includes 46 museums, sites and cultural places throughout Tuscany). Among other subjects, he devoted himself to the study of Italian still life painting and its collecting at the Medici court, designing and realizing between 2001 and 2007 the new Museo della Natura Morta in the Medici Villa of Poggio a Caiano, of which he edited with a group of specialists the publication of the complete catalog (2009). After the earthquake in Modena and its province in May 2012, he coordinated for the entire Emilia area the recovery and storage operations of damaged artistic goods, organizing the Collection Center in the Ducal Palace in Sassuolo. He then oversaw the refurbishment of the Galleria Estense in Modena, which reopened in May 2015. Highlights included the creation of the earthquake-proof base for Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Bust of Francis I. He has curated and/or participated in numerous exhibitions in Italy and abroad including Natura morta italiana dal Caravaggio al Settecento, curated by Mina Gregori in Munich and Florence (2002-2003); La Principessa saggia. The Legacy of Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici Electrice Palatina in the Palatine Gallery of Palazzo Pitti (2006); Still Life. Still life paintings and Medici collections, edited by Stefano Casciu and Marco Chiarini; Caravaggio and Caravaggeschi in Florence, Palazzo Pitti and Uffizi Gallery (2010); Guido Reni in Reggio Emilia (Reggio Emilia); Modena Barocca, Artists and Works at the Court of Francesco I d’Este (Modena); Gli Este. Renaissance and Baroque from Ferrara to Modena (Turin, Venaria Reale, 2014). He was personally involved in the acquisition of the Richard Ginori Museum to the heritage of the State, taking care of the necessary protection and enhancement activities, until the establishment of the Richard Ginori Foundation, of whose Board of Directors he is a member. He curated the exhibition on Manifattura Ginori for the Italian Pavilion at the Dubai Expo in March 2022. He is a member of the Boards of Directors of the Uffizi Galleries, the Bargello National Museum, the Accademia Gallery, the Casa Buonarroti Foundation in Florence and the Ginori Foundation.
