Il Museo della Magna Grecia. Dal progetto di Piacentini ai primi allestimenti del Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Reggio Calabria

The paper retraces the history of the exhibition designs of the National Archaeological Museum of Reggio Calabria (Italy), investigating the museographic and museological instances that inspired them, with a glimpse of the cultural context in which they flourished. The investigation period spans from the 1930s, when the architect Marcello Piacentini developed the original planning ideas for the building and the interior of the “first museum in Italy built for this purpose”, to the first exhibition presented to the public at the opening in 1958. The paper concludes with an analysis of the expansion of the museum sections in the 1960s with new criteria. Thanks to hitherto unpublished documents, the history of the museum and its protagonists has been reconstructed, revealing a spirit of collaboration between architects and archaeologists which provides an example of good museum practice and laid the basis for the subsequent development of this important institution in Southern Italy.