In Memory of Michele Lanzinger

In 2014, the MUSE in Trento won the Luigi Micheletti Award, succeeding the Military History Museum in Dresden and the Riverside Museum in Glasgow in the roll of honor, where the award ceremony was held. Receiving the trophy was an emotional and happy Michele Lanzinger, the person who had led the metamorphosis of a historic local institution into the most successful major Italian museum project of the 21st century.
The award and the international stage were fitting recognition for an endeavor that concentrated resources and expertise in an area of culture, scientific culture, which our country struggles to promote large-scale initiatives in. More than ten years later, we can view MUSE as a great success, certified not only by numbers but also by the significance of a strategy that was, first and foremost, cultural and scientific. Certainly, a large museum is unthinkable without strong political support, substantial economic investment, and an adequate management plan. Yet, the singularity of MUSE would be lost if one did not consider the fact, not obvious today and indeed somewhat counter-current, that this museum was conceived as an institution active both in scientific research and in the experimentation of new forms of cultural mediation. The fundamental adherence to this approach even after the end of its main driving force's mandate confirmed the farsighted and shared nature of this strategy.
Lanzinger's trust in the museum as a place of knowledge and its direct sharing with the challenges of the present then led him to the top of ICOM Italia, and also to many museums across our country. It also led him to Cedegolo and San Bartolomeo, with the generosity of someone who remained tenaciously close to the ideal type of the man of science: humble, enthusiastic, open, positive. Compared to other possible profiles, more marked by managerial or media skills, Lanzinger should be remembered today for his ability to pursue cultural strategies by activating research group collaborations, thus, as far as possible, symmetrical, even affectionate but kept on this side of flattery by a decidedly anti-rhetorical attitude.
The museum world had in Michele Lanzinger a gentle reference, underlying a great public work of international value and a series of already active relationships ensuring a well-deserved and necessary continuity.