Since May 2018, there is an additional space for art and culture in Rome: from the synergy between the Elena and Claudio Cerasi Foundation and CoopCulture, Palazzo Merulana was born. To restore a dilapidated building to the city, to give public life to a private art collection, to paint together with citizens a new way of making culture.
Once upon a time, a ruin on Via Merulana 121
Once a health reference point for the Capital, as the seat of the Hygiene Office of Rome, the imposing Umbertine-style building lost its function starting in the 1960s, when demolition work began, with the aim of expanding the structure. However, the project was soon abandoned, leaving a partially demolished building at the corner of two of the busiest streets in central Rome – Via Merulana and Viale Manzoni – for a long time. Such a long time that local memory became confused about the origins of this urban void, to the point that the erroneous idea spread that the architectural wound was the result of wartime bombings. In the Esquilino district, where the palace is located, for many years a rather unflattering nickname circulated about that strange ruin – the decayed tooth -: a place in a state of decay, therefore, that needs therapeutic intervention to be healed, saved.
Photo of Palazzo Merulana before restoration 
Sculpture Hall during the restoration of Palazzo Merulana
From abandonment to rebirth
And the care arrives in the early 2000s under the name of project financing, a form of collaboration between public and private sectors that has been expanding in Italy in recent years, which the Municipality of Rome entrusted to SAC spa, a construction and contracting company of the Cerasi family, which participated in the public tender at the express wish of its patriarch, Dr. Claudio Cerasi. Together with his wife Elena, they have long been art collectors, and together they decided to donate their collection for public enjoyment, emptying the walls of their home to repopulate those of a building that had (perhaps) been stripped of a public function for too long. To crown the project, the Elena and Claudio Cerasi Foundation chose CoopCulture as a partner for the management of services and content, a leading cooperative in the sector of additional services and in experimenting with practices to engage audiences in the most important museums and archaeological areas throughout the national territory. In 2018, the decay was healed, and on a sunny spring day, Palazzo Merulana finally opened to the public.
The Cerasi Collection: Early 20th Century in Rome
Crossing the glass doors of the Palace, one is immediately surrounded by the works of the Cerasi Collection, a collection of over 90 modern and contemporary artworks with a very particular focus. Elena and Claudio Cerasi have chosen to collect works from a specific period in the history of Italian art, that between the two wars, with a particular attention and love for figurative art and the Roman School, art that emerged almost a century earlier in Rome, not far from where the Palace now stands, on Via Cavour. The Palace is inhabited by the sculptures and paintings of the greatest artists, Antonietta Raphael, Mario Mafai, Scipione, but also Donghi, Capogrossi, Balla, De Chirico, Sironi, Cambellotti, to name a few. Ascending to the Hall of Paintings, the works are found facing each other, like sisters, in a relaxed environment, with large and comfortable sofas ready to accommodate visitors and allow for prolonged, relaxed, welcoming contemplation: a living room, available to all. The Cerasi Collection at Palazzo Merulana represents a journey, a path within which to rediscover figurative imaginaries, explore dreamlike portraits, and contemplate imposing sculptures, works of art that are children of a past era, which find threads and filaments in contemporary times and in the city of Rome.
A Center for Cultural Promotion and Production
The project of Palazzo Merulana, as envisioned by the enlightened Claudio Cerasi and carried out by CoopCulture, is based on a deep blend of historical memory and contemporary representations, in the various and multifaceted expressions that can be encompassed under the term “culture.” In the realm of “cultural activities,” Palazzo Merulana has responded over these two years by proposing over 400 initiatives, including book presentations, film screenings, debates, music festivals, and educational workshops, all with a single common denominator: to culturally engage the local population, offering content and formats for multiple audiences, and to habituate them to enjoying art and culture at any moment of the day, as a daily gesture.
Contemporary and territory: Palazzo Merulana is a space open to cultural blends, grassroots collaborations, and the rediscovery of early 20th-century figurative art. A free place, where one can meet and feel at home.
