Franceschini: “Colonna Museum Initiative contributes to making cultural heritage accessible”

“I could have imagined everything except a similar operation carried out by a chef and I appreciate even more the investment that you are certainly hardly carrying out, going beyond the boundaries of your primary interests”. Dario Franceschini said this to Antonello Colonna, chef and entrepreneur, now also a patron and collector. The Colonna Resort in Labico, in fact, has inaugurated the new headquarters of the Caretto & Occhinegro art gallery in its spaces and a first exhibition entitled ‘Apeiron’ with a collection of Flemish paintings that the Minister of Culture visited for a preview . “Franceschini appreciated my initiative in support of the country’s cultural heritage which makes it accessible by making it available to the public,” Colonna told Adnkronos. “He asked me if I will continue to invest in art and promised me that he will also participate in the next exhibition that we will open in spring, but not for a single day: on that occasion he said that he will appreciate all the wonders I have created in these ten years, from the Vallefredda Natural Monument to the enhancement of the Via Labicana, to the path of the sources of the Roman period “. In addition to Franceschini, Senator Luigi Zanda, Senator Bruno Astorre, the vice president participated in the inauguration of the exhibition – which can be visited by appointment until January 8 – and of the Colonna Museum, in the headquarters of the chef’s resort near Rome. of the Lazio Region Daniele Leodori and the mayor of Labico Danilo Giovannoli. The Minister of Culture, says Colonna, “did not make an institutional ‘hit and run’, but after the event he stayed for lunch in the resort, in one of the rooms with a fireplace, which I did not imagine knowing his commitments, and between we immediately established a convivial relationship. For me it was a satisfaction that Franceschini felt like a guest in a friend’s house. Despite my 13 years at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, he did not know my kitchen, which he greatly appreciated, and, with the cameras off, he personally reiterated the amazement of the space I created in a small village on the outskirts of Rome and Ciociaria “. (by Cristiano Camera)