The exhibition, taking place from 8 August to 8 September 2019, is celebrating Enrico Mylius, the "founding father" of Villa Vigoni, in his hometown of Frankfurt am Main, 250 years after his birth.
Developed thanks to the collaboration between Villa Vigoni and the Museum Giersch der Goethe-Universität, the exhibition aims to tell the story of his extraordinary personal and entrepreneurial experience in Germany and Italy during the nineteenth century. The two important commercial and cultural centres of Frankfurt am Main and Milan, together with Weimar, formed Enrico Mylius's "cosmos". His activities as a merchant, banker and benefactor, as well as the history of the Mylius-Vigoni family - and therefore the origins of the German-Italian Centre for European Excellence, Villa Vigoni - will be reconstructed in the exhibition on the basis of special documents from the time and works of art. The exhibition reconstructs the character of a man who developed a vast network of binational contacts and was extremely interested in art, literature and more generally in culture. Mylius's legacy is more significant than ever in German-Italian relations, especially with regard to European issues.
Most of the exhibits come from the Villa Vigoni collections, accompanied by loans from various institutions in Frankfurt and Milan, including: Städel Museum, Senckenberg Naturmuseum, Institut für Stadtgeschichte, Società d'Incoraggiamento d'Arti e Mestieri (SIAM), Istituto dei Ciechi and Museo della Seta.
curators: Dr. Manfred Großkinsky, Viola Usselmann M.A.
Video-Interview mit dem Direktor des Museums Giersch, Dr. Großkinsky