MUDEM joins the scientific committee of the exhibition curated by Angela Orlandi
'The historian and the merchant. Federigo Melis and Francesco Datini' is an exhibition at the Palazzo Pretorio in Prato that will run from 11 May to 26 October 2025. It was set up by the Fondazione Istituto Internazionale di Storia Economica 'F. Datini' and curated by Angela Orlandi, Scientific Director of the Foundation and Professor of Economic History at the University of Florence.
The exhibition displays artefacts, images, documents and films and celebrates the seventieth anniversary of the International exhibition of the Datini archive, organized by Federigo Melis at the Palazzo Pretorio in 1955. Patrons of the first exhibition included Luigi Einaudi, the outgoing president of the Italian republic and Giovanni Gronchi, the newly nominated president. That event inspired Melis to found an international studies institute. The exhibition has Banca d'Italia's Money Museum on its scientific committee and is devoted to Melis and Datini, who are united by a slender thread that runs through seven centuries of mostly, though not exclusively economic history. Francesco Datini, who was a prominent merchant and banker, also features in the first of MUDEM's three itineraries in the upcoming 'Adventure of money' exhibition.
In the seven sections of the exhibition, visitors can admire photographs, documents and objects from public and private collections, as well as from the archives and museums in Prato and Florence, and letters and films that relate to the two personalities. A special feature in the first section are the third millennium BCE Mesopotamian clay tablets from Banca d'Italia's collections. Melis was one of the first scholars to understand their significance in the history of accounting.
Through the example of Melis and Datini, we can learn to appreciate the importance of history and, by decoding its messages, we can learn to understand something about ourselves and about peoples who are different from us.
The exhibition has also benefited from a collaboration with the Palazzo Pretorio Museum and State Archive in Prato, the Galileo Museum in Florence and the patronage of the University of Florence and of its Department of Economics and Business Science.
OPENING HOURS
Every day from 10:30 to 6:30 (closed on Tuesdays, unless it is a public holiday)
The ticket office closes at 6 p.m.
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