Exhibition Service

The National Roman Museum supports and promotes an artwork exchange and lending policy, both within Italy and abroad, developed to facilitate scientific and cultural cooperation with other Italian and foreign museum and cultural institutions.

These activities are undertaken with the full participation of the Museum’s technical and scientific personnel, with the aim of improving the cultural offering as a whole and fostering dialogue with the Museum’s various publics.

On the basis of the MiC Guidelines for Authorising the Lending of Works of Art (Ministerial Decree of 25 January 2008), loans of artworks are granted in order to:

contribute to the success of an exhibition with significant scientific and cultural value;
promote an understanding of Italian cultural heritage, both for works exhibited and those usually kept in storage and therefore difficult for the general public to access and experience;
develop relationships and cooperation with other cultural institutions and other nations;
deepen the historical and artistic understanding of a work;
develop and promote scientific studies;
contribute to the development of an educational project of particular importance, which may involve large and diverse groups of users;
temporarily reunite finds that have been separated by time;
reciprocate loans from other museums.

Works making up the permanent collection in accordance with Article 66(2)(b) of Legislative Decree No 42/2004 (as amended) are not available for lending, except in cases of institutional significance or special agreements, which the Museum reserves the right to assess on a case-by-case basis.

To assess these requests, the Museum applies the following procedures:

National Roman Museum procedures for lending

To ensure an appropriate assessment of lending requests for works owned by the National Roman Museum, such requests must be submitted with sufficient advance notice, at least eight months before the date of inauguration of the exhibition or exposition in Italy or at least one year in advance in the case of exhibitions abroad. In the case of exhibitions that envisage the participation of the National Roman Museumon the scientific committee for the event or special agreements for scientific and cultural cooperation concluded with the National Roman Museum, official lending requests must be received not less than four months before the date of inauguration of the exhibition if it is in Italy and not less than six months for exhibitions abroad.
Lending requests must contain the following: the title of the exhibition (even if this is only provisional); the exhibition period (even if this is only provisional), with an indication of the day scheduled for inauguration; the location and site of the exhibition, or the successive sites in the case of travelling exhibitions; a full list of the works intended to be exhibited (even if this is only provisional); a list of the works requested on loan from National Roman Museum, identified using inventory numbers or images; a standard facility report for the exhibition site; the scientific plan for the exhibition, including the names of the curators and members of the scientific committee and of the organiser; the name and contact details for the individual responsible for custody of the works during the exhibition and the individual responsible for custody of the works. The National Roman Museum reserves the option of drafting scientific contributions and/or catalogue entries about the works provided on loan.
The requesting institution or body must sign the terms and conditions of the lending agreement proposed by the National Roman Museum, assuming all associated costs, including costs for compliance with the requirements in terms of conservation, packing and transport of the works laid down in the attached Instructions for Conservation and Handling of Cultural Assets for authorisation of lending, drafted for each work.
The works must be covered by an all-risks insurance policy for their accepted value in favour of the National Roman Museum, taken out with an insurance company located in Italy, and nail-to-nail coverage against all risks, including acts of terrorism and war.
The National Roman Museum reserves the right to withdraw the loaned items at any time if the conditions of the agreement are not observed.
The decision as to whether to grant a loan will be made by the General Management of the National Roman Museum, following a joint assessment with technical and scientific personnel.
In the case of lending for exhibitions abroad, the National Roman Museum must obtain prior approval from the MiC Museums Department.
For exhibitions abroad, a signed written guarantee that the works will be returned at the end of the exhibition must be provided by the requesting institution.
As an institution with financial, accounting and organisational autonomy in accordance with Article 30 of Prime Ministerial Decree No 171/2014 (as amended), the National Roman Museum reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to apply a loan fee in exchange for granting the temporary use of pieces held in its collections. If a loan fee is applied, a specific agreement indicating the conditions of the loan agreement will be signed at least thirty days before collection of the works concerned. A specific committee, created for this purpose, made up of technical and scientific personnel from the National Roman Museum and chaired by the Director of the Museum, will be convened to assess the loan fee. The amount of the loan fee may change depending on the requesting institution (private or public institution), the number of works on loan, their historical and artistic value and their significance in relation to the collections and history of the National Roman Museum, the duration of the loan and the location of the exhibition (exhibitions in Italy, Europe and non-EU nations). A document is currently being developed detailing the methods used to determine the loan fee. This will be published on the website of the National Roman Museum when it has been finalised.
As an alternative to the loan fee, the National Roman Museum may assess the possibility of accepting a contribution from the requesting institution to the restoration or extraordinary maintenance of works in the collections or kept in storage.
In the case of exhibitions that envisage the participation of the National Roman Museum on the scientific committee for the event or special agreements for scientific and cultural cooperation concluded with the National Roman Museum, the loan fee will not be applied.