Mazel tov to Dario Disegni, who has become president of the National Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah (MEIS), which is under development in Ferrara.
Culture Minister Dario Franceschini named Disegni president of the museum foundation’s board of directors, replacing Riccardo Calimani, who had held the establishment of the foundation, the museum’s managing body, in 2008.
In an announcement published this week, Franceschini called Disegni’s appointment an “important step forward toward the concrete realization of MEIS.”
He noted that the ministry had allocated €7 million to the museum over the next two years as part of its Strategic Plan for Largescale Cultural Projects.
Disegni has worked in the field of foundations and cultural institutions for more than two decades, both in Italy and internationally.
He is president of the Foundation for Jewish Cultural Heritage in Italy (and in that capacity attended the Cross-disciplinary Conference on European Jewish Cemeteries, held in Vilnius in October). President of the Turin Jewish Community, he is also president of the Mangini Museum in Milan and a board member of other museums, foundations and cultural institutions including the Turin Egyptian Museum and the National Risorgimento Museum.
MEIS was formally established by a law in 2003. Its site is the architectural complex of a former Ferrara prison, built in 1912 and decommissioned in 1992.
Work on the project has progressed slowly, with only a fraction of the building open and no complete core exhibit installed.
Currently MEIS is displaying part of the collection of the Jewish community museum in Ferrara, housed in the 15th century building in the heart of the old Jewish quarter but still closed to the public since an earthquake damaged the building in 2012.