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Index 1/ “Conquerors, and other nomads…”, François Pinault, President of Palazzo Grassi 2/ “Of the good use of immigration”, Monique Veaute, Director of Palazzo Grassi 3/ General presentation, by Jean-Jacques Aillagon, chief curator of “Rome and Barbarians”. 4/ “Rome and the Barbarians, one thousand years of European history”, Yann Rivière, Director of Studies of the Ecole française de Rome 5/ Chronology 6/ Key figures of their time, the men and women who made history 7/ Facts and figures 8/ The catalogue 9/ Palazzo Grassi 10/ Biographies 11/ General information 12/ Media Contacts 13/ Captions
1/ “Conquerors, and other nomads…”, François Pinault, President of Palazzo Grassi “Rome and the Barbarians”: in spite of its sobriety, the title of this exhibition, the last that Jean-Jacques Aillagon has left us as his heritage, is eminently suggestive. It revives the vision of a civilization, our own, ignited in the early years of the Christian era by hordes of riders surging from still unexplored steppes, in Asia or elsewhere. It conjures bearded nomads pouring forth from the borders of the empires. It evokes, in our imagination, the trampled laws, the slaughtered or enslaved men, the abused women, the children wrested away from their parents, the jewels and the works of culture plundered and piled high on the heavy wagons of the invaders to be carried off to smoky makeshift camps, set up well away from the cities. In short, on the large screen of our collective unconscious, the age of the barbarians remains a time of boundless violence. But these are just stereotypes. Because, fortunately, for the contemporaries of Clovis as well as for us, the distant heirs to the Goths, Saxon, and Lombards, the barbarian invasions cannot be epitomized as a sudden wild onrush of which the “civilized” people were the victims. They were preceded, in Constantinople, as in the remotest areas of the imperium, in the Rhine plains, the Po Valley or the Danube estuary, by the muffled rumblings of traditions which appeared permeable to each other, by the brushing of two bordering worlds that had got to know each other before they came to clash, through exchanges, cross-breeding, negotiations, trading, and also conversions to the new faith that was planting its first churches throughout Europe. It was a metamorphosis in progress, whose principal vector was still art. This complex period, marked by the commingling of civilizations, the opening, the integration of worships and traditions, the dissemination of knowledge, mutual enrichment, and even, why not, cultural diversity, gives evidence, were it still necessary, to the timeless and universal force of art whose origin is lost in the mists of time but yet continues in the most contemporary creations. The installations of the Indian artist Subodh Gupta, whose «Very hungry god» the Venetians already know, as it is visible in all its awe-inspiring welded lustre outside Palazzo Grassi, those of Pascale-Marthine Tayou, the works of the Italian artist Rudolf Stingel and the mangas of the Japanese plastic art exponent Takashi Murakami, just to name a few, make us aware of how universal the essence of art is. And Venice has always welcomed artists. This is a tradition that will be embraced by both Palazzo Grassi and the future museum of Punta della Dogana. Because wasn’t it to the Venetian coast and to the islands of her lagoon, then under Byzantine rule, that the inhabitants of the Roman empire fled to seek refuge and peace when, starting from the 6th century, the Lombard conquest, long, cruel, indecisive, put them to too severe a test? François Pinault
Page 1: Palazzo Grassi, Venezia 26.01 > 20.
Page 6 and 7: 3 / Presentation of the exhibition
Page 8 and 9: Members of the Scientific Committee
Page 10 and 11: thanks to the efforts of the soldie
Page 12 and 13: 5/ Chronology 58-51 B.C.: Caesar su
Page 14 and 15: 6/ Key figures of their time The me
Page 16 and 17: Alaric I (king of the Visigoths fro
Page 18 and 19: Gregory I the Great (Saint) (pope,
Page 20 and 21: 8/ The catalogue Co-published by Pa
Page 22 and 23: The Board of Directors François Pi
Page 24 and 25: 10/ Biography François Pinault Fra
Page 26 and 27: 11/ General information Palazzo Gra
Page 28 and 29: 12 / Contacts for press Head of Com
Page 30 and 31: 1187-1188-1891 Dortmund Treasure La
Page 32 and 33: 14 Onion-shaped fibula 4th century
Page 34: Paintings 762 “The battle of Aqui

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