Child-friendly. Growing up in ancient Rome.
Today I am talking about an exhibition that will surely fascinate adults and children alike, indeed let me add that it was specifically designed for children.
This is an exhibition that offers an unmissable opportunity to learn about a somewhat unexplored theme, the daily life of children in the Roman world, retracing the different facets of daily life: birth, the rites of passage to adulthood, school, play, the relationship with animals, fears, through statues, sarcophagi, reliefs and everyday objects such as toys!
Visitors will be able to take a beautiful journey through time to discover curiosities, fun games and mythical characters that will revive the world of the little ones who lived 2000 years ago.
Dear ArcheoTravelers, if I have intrigued you a bit, continue reading!
An exhibition suitable for children
‘Action figures’, toys and games from millennia ago, sculptures of divinities depicted in their childhood, works placed at child’s height, to meet the needs of the youngest visitors.
From 23.11.2021 to 24.04.2022 the Uffizi Gallery in Florence is hosting the exhibition “Child-friendly. Growing up in ancient Rome“.
Curator Lorenza Camin:
“The exhibition, the first dedicated to Roman childhood, addresses the most diverse aspects of living” as children “in Ancient Rome, from rites of passage, to school, from games to relationships with animals. On an occasion like this, works that, taken individually, are difficult to understand for visitors, become fully appreciable and understandable in an organic narrative path. Statuettes, reliefs, busts, sarcophagi and toys will therefore be the protagonists of a story that will restore voice and body to a fundamental part of ancient Roman society”
The exhibition addresses, in innovative ways, a hitherto unexplored theme, the daily life of children in antiquity. In fact, in a series of over thirty works, various moments of the daily life of children in ancient Roman times are described. Birth, rites of passage to adulthood, school, entertainment, the relationship with animals, fears, are just some of the themes that visitors will find represented in statues, sarcophagi, reliefs and everyday objects such as toys.
Among the most significant works, a statue of Mercury with little Bacchus, restored for the exhibition and returned to the public from the deposits of the Uffizi Galleries after decades, a rare ivory doll from the 3rd century AD, never exhibited so far, and a very special gladiator toy figurine with modular accessories. Of particular value is also a choice of tanagrines (a particular type of funeral statuettes), from the Hellenistic and Roman periods, never presented to the public.
It is said that history is made by great men, but it is sometimes forgotten that they too were once children. Likewise, the divinities of the Roman pantheon also experienced sometimes adventurous and difficult childhoods, such as Hercules, Bacchus, but also Mercury. The exhibition dedicates a section to this theme in which the visitor will be surprised to recognize the gods of Olympus in chubby children.
The exhibition, while designed for an adult audience, also offers interpretations and paths designed for the very young.
Uffizi director Eike Schmidt:
“The exhibition opens close to the International Children’s Day, which falls on November 20, and which must not remain an empty celebration. For the Uffizi it is an opportunity to address an age group that is little considered in the artistic field, both as a subject and as an audience. Art is not just a thing for adults, and this review proves it, putting in place an involvement between peers that spans centuries of history. The children of Roman antiquity speak to the children of today, with the same language.”
The exhibition is accompanied by a series of didactic equipment, such as captions written in a ‘child-friendly’ language, comic strips designed by Stefano Piscitelli and a series of mp3 audio produced by Carlotta Caruso and Sara Colantonio of the National Roman Museum. In line with museum criteria already experimented within the Galleries, intended to facilitate the inclusion of children, some works are in fact exhibited further down, so as to allow children to look into the eyes of their peers of 2000 years ago.
The curator Fabrizio Paolucci:
“This exhibition is an extraordinary opportunity to bring children to the Museum. The visiting experience, favored by the various learning methods proposed, will make them feel involved in the narration and will stimulate their curiosity without boring them. With “Choose your playmate!”, In particular, young visitors will be able to identify, among the works on display, the portrait of a child they like most and who will become the opponent of a challenge to the last nut in one of the recreational activities planned at the Boboli Gardens with the arrival of summer. In addition, visits have been planned for families, tactile and in LIS (Italian Sign Language)”
A movie, curated by Gianmarco D’Agostino for Advaitafilm Film, concludes the itinerary and leads visitors, through sounds and images, to a garden of ancient Rome where some children experience moments of their day.
Personal considerations
It is an exhibition entirely dedicated to childhood in the Roman world, able to make visitors retrace the different facets of the daily life of the children of ancient Rome: birth, rites of passage to adulthood, school, the game, their relationship with animals, the fears they felt.
I think that with its over 30 works, including sculptures of child divinities, games and dolls, the exhibition offers an unmissable opportunity to learn about a rather unexplored theme, the daily life of children in antiquity and that allows you to bring even the little ones closer. to the topics covered by the exhibition, after all, we always talk about their peers, who only lived 2000 years before them.
Trained at the University of Turin, where she obtained her three-year degree in Cultural Heritage Sciences and her master's degree in History of Archaeological and Historical-Artistic Heritage, she specialized at the University of Milan, graduating in Archaeological Heritage. Freelancer, she deals with computer archeology and virtual heritage, museum displays, 2D graphics and multimedia products applied to cultural heritage. Collaborates with various public and private bodies in the field of projects related to the research, enhancement, communication and promotion of cultural heritage. She deals with the creation of cultural itineraries relating to the entire Italian Peninsula and the development of content (creation of texts and photographic production) for paper and virtual publications. Her study interests include the development of new techniques and means of communication for the enhancement of cultural heritage and the evolution of the symbolism of power between the Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages.
