Custodians: From Curators to Guardians

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DC Field	Value
dc.identifier	ECF_article_593
dc.title	Custodians: From Curators to Guardians. A Professional Role for Italian Museums and Its Historical Definitions
dc.contributor.author	Piva Chiara
dc.publisher	Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Digital Publishing
dc.type	Research Article
dc.language.iso	it
dc.identifier.uri	http://edizionicafoscari.it/en/edizioni4/riviste/venezia-arti/2016/1/custodi-da-curatori-a-guardiani/
dc.description.abstract	This paper reflects on the changing role of the guardian or keeper in museums and art collections from the seventeenth century to the present. Starting from the lexical meaning of the Italian word ‘custode’, thanks to archival documentation, the research reconstructs the use of this word in the historical lexicon of museums and their professions, in different geographical and cultural contexts. Comparing the historical regulations of museums and art collections in different Italian regions, the paper argues that the profound changes associated with the functions and the professional profile of the keepers transformed them from curators of collections to mere guardians of rooms.
dc.relation.ispartof	Venezia Arti
dc.relation.ispartof	Vol. 25 \| December 2016
dc.issued	2016-12-20
dc.dateAccepted	2016-08-31
dc.dateSubmitted	2016-08-24
dc.identifier.issn
dc.identifier.eissn	2385-2720
dc.rights	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.identifier.doi	10.14277/2385-2720/VA-25-16-9
dc.peer-review	yes
dc.subject	Academy
dc.subject	Academy
dc.subject	Curator
dc.subject	Curator
dc.subject	Keeper
dc.subject	Keeper
dc.subject	Museum
dc.subject	Museum

Research Article
open access peer reviewed

A Professional Role for Italian Museums and Its Historical Definitions

Chiara Piva Sapienza Università di Roma, Italia

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abstract

This paper reflects on the changing role of the guardian or keeper in museums and art collections from the seventeenth century to the present. Starting from the lexical meaning of the Italian word ‘custode’, thanks to archival documentation, the research reconstructs the use of this word in the historical lexicon of museums and their professions, in different geographical and cultural contexts. Comparing the historical regulations of museums and art collections in different Italian regions, the paper argues that the profound changes associated with the functions and the professional profile of the keepers transformed them from curators of collections to mere guardians of rooms.

Published

Dec. 20, 2016

Accepted

Aug. 31, 2016

Submitted

Aug. 24, 2016

Language

Keywords: Museum • Academy • Keeper • Curator

permalink http://doi.org/10.14277/2385-2720/VA-25-16-9

Copyright: © 2016 Chiara Piva. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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