The Monumental Complex of the Pilotta in Parma has launched La cultura cura, la bellezza salva, a museotherapy program created in collaboration with theMosaika Cultural Association. The initiative responds to the growing attention to an inclusive museum model, oriented toward cultural well-being and capable of involving people with cognitive disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, individuals with fibromyalgia syndrome and individuals experiencing stressful conditions or states of anxiety. The activities were developed with the contribution of local voluntary associations, which have been considered an integral part of the project since its conception. The proposal is based on scientific theories related to museotherapy, a discipline according to which aesthetic experience can function as a complementary tool to conventional therapies. The practices adopted aim to stimulate mental functions, slow cognitive impairment and improve quality of life. Goals include the production of psychophysical well-being and the activation of a more balanced relationship with self, nature, and the everyday dimension. In the case of cognitive disorders, the project stresses the importance of identifying alternative communication channels when memory, logic and verbal language tend to regress. The intent is to offer relational spaces that allow participants to find unconventional forms of expression, believed to generate benefit.
“With Culture Heals, Beauty Saves the Pilotta reaffirms its vocation as a living museum capable of generating well-being and inclusion,” says Stefano L’Occaso, director of the Pilotta Monumental Complex. “We deeply believe that art and culture can be tools for personal care and growth, capable of restoring meaning, emotion and dignity even to those living in fragile situations. This project reminds us that the museum is not only a place of preservation, but also of relationship and human regeneration.”
“Art, as the French anthropologist Lévi-Strauss stated, corresponds to a shared dream,” Gianfranco Marchesi stressed, "first an emotional shock, then a rational argument. It is a rich, powerful, complex stimulus, both cultural and sensory-emotional, which is able to communicate at a more intimate and deeper level than pure rationality and is able to converse with people’s innermost psychology, entering the dungeons of the ego, the depths of the mind, and tells about them."
“Museotherapy,” Maurizio Vanni points out, “corresponds to a great opportunity for our museums by confirming the benefits that a personalized aesthetic experience proposed in the form of a workshop path can bring to fragile and vulnerable people. It is a complementary form of therapy that uses the perceptual response to the enjoyment of works of art.”
The first workshop phase, scheduled between October and December 2025 and dedicated to patients with Alzheimer’s disease, was carried out with the participation of the C.R.A. Al Parco di Coopselios of Monticelli Terme and the Alzheimer’s Support Group of Fidenza. The activities were defined with the support of a scientific committee composed of Gianfranco Marchesi, a psychiatrist and expert in neuroscience and neuroaesthetics; Maurizio Vanni, a museologist specializing in museotherapy; neurologists Liborio Parrino and Pierluigi Gatti; Carla Campanini, an art historian functionary at the Pilotta; and Mario Calidoni, an expert in heritage education. The selection of patients, with similar levels of cognitive impairment, was the starting point. The working group met with caregivers (the people who care for the frail) and participants to define specific needs. A study day was also organized for museum staff, led by Gianfranco Marchesi and Maurizio Vanni of the University of Pisa, aimed at sharing theoretical and operational expertise. In collaboration with Carla Campanini, the rooms of the National Gallery deemed most suitable for comprehensive involvement were identified and the thematic nuclei of works most appropriate to the objectives of the itinerary were identified.
The meetings, weekly and lasting about ninety minutes, were structured on the basis of patients’ subjective aesthetic experience and so-called evocative therapeutic storytelling. The cycle has scheduled three of them. A follow-up meeting is scheduled in December that will include a workshop and the administration of questionnaires designed to evaluate the effects of the activities and the persistence of the observed benefits over time. During each session, subjective measurements, through verbal comparisons, and objective measurements, through the use of the Brain Computer Interface, a simplified version of the medical tools EEG and ECG, were made. The project paid specific attention to caregivers, who are considered central figures in patients’ daily lives but are often exposed to frailty and emotional overload. Dedicated meetings have been arranged prior to the start of the workshops, during their implementation and in the period following, with the inclusion of guided tours focused on the theme Museums, Health and Well-being, designed to offer support, tools for reflection and opportunities for relief.
The program will be completed with a national conference sponsored by the Pilotta together with the University of Parma, entitled Museology and Social Responsibility. The museum becomes a place of health and well-being. The event is scheduled for Saturday, December 13, 2025 in the Voltoni Hall of the Guazzatoio and will feature Maurizio Vanni, from the University of Pisa, and Valentina Gastaldo, from the University of Parma, as scientific leaders and moderators. The conference will offer a moment of restitution of the work carried out through the presentation of the subjective and objective evaluations collected in the previous months, will deepen the methodology adopted and examine its scientific value within interdisciplinary paths.
There will also be talks dedicated to the themes of social responsibility of museums and cultural well-being, with the participation of Italian and international professionals from different fields: museum management, heritage management and enhancement, medical disciplines related to the study of the relationship between art and the brain, economics of cultural well-being and marketing of social responsibility. Yoga Museum, Mindful Museum and therapeutic storytelling workshops will be offered in the afternoon, designed as examples of museum-therapeutic practices aimed at non-specialist audiences.
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| The Pilotta of Parma launches a museotherapy project dedicated to patients with cognitive fragility |
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