From September 26, 2026, to February 7, 2027, Intesa Sanpaolo ’s Gallerie d’Italia – Milan will host LIBERE! 1946–2026. “Women’s Achievements,” an exhibition conceived and curated by Renata Ferri and produced by iO Donna—the women’s weekly magazine of Corriere della Sera, directed by Danda Santini—in collaboration with Gallerie d’Italia – Milan. The project is being presented to mark the 30th anniversary of the RCS MediaGroup publication and uses photography to trace eighty years of the history of the Italian Republic from a women’s perspective, focusing on the journey toward full citizenship, emancipation, and the assertion of rights.
The exhibition begins on June 2, 1946—the date of the institutional referendum and the election of the Constituent Assembly—when nearly thirteen million Italian women participated for the first time in a national political vote. This achievement was followed by the work of the twenty-one “Constituent Mothers,” who helped enshrine the principle of equality between women and men in the Constitution. Entry into political life and the constitutional recognition of equality marked the beginning of a new phase, but many of the freedoms we now take for granted still had to be won.
It is from this gap between established principles and their actual implementation that LIBERE! takes shape; through a chronological journey, it reconstructs the transformations of Italian society and the civil struggles that have marked the eighty years that followed. The narrative unfolds through approximately 50 photographs from the Intesa Sanpaolo Publifoto Archive, the Contrasto agency archive, and the personal archives of Paola Agosti and Marcella Campagnano, accompanied by documents and testimonies.
The images serve as the primary tool through which the exhibition interprets the history of the Republic: faces, gestures, and situations convey individual and collective experiences, including those of women who remained out of the spotlight yet were involved in the changes to the country’s civic, social, and economic life. The exhibition traces the key milestones in the struggle for rights, from family law reform to the introduction of divorce, from the battles for equality in the workplace to access to the professions and the judiciary, up to the mobilizations of the feminist movement, the right to self-determination, and the recognition of sexual violence as a crime against the person.
These legislative changes were accompanied by transformations in Italian society over the decades. The exhibition examines women’s access to higher education and their growing presence in the workforce, in culture, in sports, and in institutions, along with shifts in social norms and daily life. Within this context, work serves as one of the exhibition’s central themes.
The photographs document women’s gradual entry into professional sectors long closed to them and their contribution to Italy’s economic development, as well as the unresolved issues related to equal opportunity—from wage disparities to representation in decision-making roles. Economic independence is highlighted in the exhibition as one of the fundamental conditions for women’s freedom.
Alongside leading figures in politics, culture, science, business, and the professions, LIBERE! devotes particular attention to ordinary women: workers, students, mothers, activists, electricians, athletes, and citizens. It is these everyday experiences that form the central theme of the exhibition, highlighting how collective change has also unfolded through a multitude of individual journeys.
The final section, however, shifts the focus to contemporary artistic exploration and the evolution of the photographic language. Following the historical narrative constructed through the archives, the exhibition concludes with photographic works by artists engaged in personal and intimate explorations. Here, photography opens up to dialogue with other visual languages and becomes a space for experimentation and self-representation. The artists directly assume the role of authors of their own narratives, proposing different ways of reflecting on the present and on the expressive possibilities of the photographic medium.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a program of events aimed at various audiences, including guided tours for schools and public talks. Some of the photographs on display come fromthe Intesa Sanpaolo Publifoto Archive. The images have been restored, digitized, and cataloged, and have been made available online by the Intesa Sanpaolo Historical Archive for public access. The Publifoto Archive, acquired by Intesa Sanpaolo in 2015 with the aim of promoting it as a national cultural asset, serves as a documentary source for reconstructing the history of 20th-century Italy.
The Milan museum is part of Intesa Sanpaolo’s Gallerie d’Italia museum project, which also includes locations in Turin, Naples, and Vicenza. The project is led by Michele Coppola, the Bank’s Executive Director of Art, Culture, and Historical Heritage and General Director of Gallerie d’Italia.
“Sharing the historical and photographic heritage that belongs to our collections takes on even greater significance as we retrace our country’s recent history, its transformations, and its civic achievements,” says Michele Coppola, Executive Director of Art, Culture, and Historical Heritage at Intesa Sanpaolo and General Director of the Gallerie d’Italia. An image archive reveals its value whenever it provides an opportunity for study, reflection, and even debate on current issues. The Gallerie d’Italia are vibrant, open spaces where different generations and audiences come together and find common ground in a shared heritage.”
“Since its inception,iO Donna has chronicled the evolution of our society with a keen focus on women’s empowerment,” explains iO Donna Editor-in-Chief Danda Santini. “This year, as the 80th anniversary of women’s suffrage coincides with the magazine’s 30th anniversary, we have decided to retrace the history of the Republic through the journey of women’s emancipation in Italy. The exhibition LIBERE!, curated by Renata Ferri and presented in partnership with Intesa Sanpaolo, offers a fresh perspective that invites reflection on rights and freedoms—both those already secured and those still to be won.”
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| LIBERE! in Milan: Eighty Years of Women’s Achievements Told Through Photography |
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