Brera’s Historical Plaster Cast Collection

The Historical Gipsoteca of the Brera Academy participates in the IartNet project with a group of sculptural works restored by the “Camillo Boito” School of Restoration. The 35 selected works, chosen from a total collection of 915, are representative of different periods of acquisition, from the Academy’s foundation in 1776 to the present day, as well as of the various types present in the extensive collection. These include casts acquired for exhibition purposes or as teaching aids for the different schools, such as Sculpture, Artistic Anatomy, Life Drawing, and Ornament, as well as original models that won internal and national competitions or were donated by artists.

PhD candidates from the Academies of Brera, Naples, and Verona participated in the project, bringing diverse expertise within the framework of Third Mission activities. The inclusion of this representative sample of sculptural works in the Brera Academy Heritage platform will enable further enhancement and promotion of the collection, supported by an important tool for knowledge dissemination.

Focusing on the 864 plaster works that constitute the Historical Plaster Cast Collection (Gipsoteca Storica di Brera), a preliminary classification within this extensive corpus can be based on stylistic typology or genre: casts from classical sculpture; casts from medieval and Renaissance works; casts from decorative models ranging from antiquity to Art Deco; and original models acquired through competitions organised by the Academy from 1803 onwards or donated by artists.

Since 2014, thanks to the collaboration between the Heritage Department and the “Camillo Boito” School of Restoration at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, a systematic conservation campaign has been carried out on plaster works, alongside numerous routine and extraordinary maintenance interventions, as well as the complete inventorying of the collection within the SiRBeC system, including the assignment of SC identification numbers to each object.

This project, through which the Historical Plaster Cast Collection of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera is incorporated into the IartNET PNRR initiative, provides for the updating of inventory records for works that have been restored, maintained, relocated, or newly acquired over the past three years. It also includes the integration into the IartNET digital portal of the entire SiRBeC catalogue of sculptural works or, given time constraints, of a selected group of at least 35 inventory records. These records will be enriched with high-resolution photographic documentation and structured metadata, ensuring their interoperability within the platform’s architecture (aligned with standards such as Dublin Core and the Europeana Data Model), and enabling their reuse across institutional, research, and public-facing contexts.

Within this framework, the selected corpus is conceived not merely as a representative sample but as a pilot dataset for the testing of workflows related to data normalisation, enrichment, and publication in IartNET. The integration process involves the alignment of existing SiRBeC records, the enhancement of descriptive, historical, and technical fields, and the creation of digital assets designed to support both scholarly research and broader dissemination through the platform’s storytelling tools.

From a historiographical perspective, the project contributes to the reassessment of plaster cast collections as epistemic infrastructures within academic institutions. Far from being secondary or derivative objects, casts historically functioned as operative devices for the construction and transmission of artistic knowledge: they enabled comparison, serial analysis, and the stabilisation of visual canons, while also supporting practices of copying, translation, and remediation across media. Read through a media-archaeological lens, the Gipsoteca emerges as a stratified system of images and objects in which reproduction is not opposed to originality, but rather constitutes a primary condition for the formation of artistic and art-historical knowledge.

The selected works reflect this multiplicity of functions. The corpus includes casts after canonical works of classical antiquity (such as the Ercole Farnese, the Venere di Milo, il Discobolo, and the Fauno Barberini), exemplars of mythological and literary subjects (Figlia di Niobe, Saffo abbandonata da Faone, Endimione dormiente), and works tied to early modern and modern sculptural traditions (including the monument to Papa Clemente XIII Rezzonico and Canova's Beneficenza). It further encompasses decorative elements (such as festoons with flowers and fruit), complex multi-part compositions (Davide e Golia, Madonna Taccioli), and casts related to major sculptural cycles, including those derived from the Medici Tombs.

The group also includes works in stone (Cleopatra, Leonardo, Cristo) and recent acquisitions by Montaguti (Fanciullo, Atleta), reflecting the continued expansion of the Academy’s patrimony. Together, these objects exemplify the layered historical roles of academic collections, while also providing a foundation for their contemporary reactivation through digital infrastructures.