71 I. L.: Indeed, the exhibition opens with the presentation of two iconic Taïno pieces that the Medicis owned and are today in the Museo di Antropologia of Florence. One is a tridacna shell necklace, decorated at its center with a zemi (a deity or an ancestor), and the other is a large ceremonial dish that also has a zemi fi gural representation on it. These objects are not the only ones on loan. Other Florentine institutions, like the Museo Archeologico Nazionale and the Palazzo Pitti, have also lent us some historically signifi cant works. I must admit that these marvelous contributions were not planned at the outset. When we began discussions with Andrea Pessina, the superintendent of archaeology for Tuscany, collaborative connections quickly developed between us and the aforementioned institutions. The latter expressed their interest in participating in this project with the offer of loans, including of Medici pieces. We could not have been more delighted. Aside from the honor of having my own family’s name associated in some way with that of this great Renaissance family, these unexpected loans enhance the exhibition’s discourse and give it an interesting historical dimension. These pieces remind us of the age of the links between Italy and the New World and even reference the very origins of the concept of art collecting. After all, the Medicis were the fi rst great collectors in history. We have put added emphasis on this underlying theme of collecting with the inclusion of objects lent to us by other European private collections. I am referring here specifi cally to the part of the installation devoted to the city of Teotihuacan, which includes remarkable works that formerly belonged to great esthetes such as Jacob Epstein, André Breton, Pierre Matisse, and, once again, the Medicis. These works make it possible to illustrate the practice of collecting within a context focused completely on beauty, an approach very different from that of my father, which would more accurately be described as scientifi c. T. A. M.: Would you elaborate a little on Giancarlo Ligabue’s collecting methodology? I. L.: My father put together his entire collection—and not only that of Pre-Columbian art—motivated by the necessity of understanding the past in order to be able to face the future, as he often told me. When he bought an object, it was because he saw it as a signifi cant receptacle of knowledge, and he tried to extract as much of that knowledge as possible from it. That FIG. 6 (above): Mask. Teotihuacan. Valley of Mexico, Mexico. AD 450–650. Nephrite. H: 18.5 cm. Ex Pierre Matisse. Private collection. FIG. 7 (left): Seated fi gure. Olmec, Las Bocas, Pueblo, Mexico. 1200–900 BC. Terracotta with white slip and red pigment. H: 28 cm.
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