How did the Tupinambá mantle come to the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan?
Through a donation by Manfredo Settala, son of Ludovico Settala, the proto-physician who is also mentioned in I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed, Alessandro Manzoni). This is very interesting because Settala was the first to say that the plague was a danger. Like our founder Federico Borromeo – who owned a telescope more powerful than Galileo’s – Settala also had an extremely scientific mindset already at the beginning of the 1600s. The Pinacoteca Ambrosiana reflects this very specific interest in science. It should be remembered that this was 1630, during a very flourishing movement, especially in the Milanese context, which was particularly active, as the Settala Collection demonstrates.
There is a fundamental element to the collection: it was never a Wunderkammer, a cabinet of curiosities. Manfredo never had that interest. He wanted to create what we would call an ethnographic museum, whose purpose was not to judge, but to analyze – responding to the desire to record and compare different populations. The collection was bequeathed in a will in 1680, but due to legal issues it only arrived here in 1711. In the volume of the Museo Settaliano there is an engraving depicting the layout of the museum, and the mantle can be seen hanging. Therefore, we are certain that the mantle was on display.
The way the mantle arrived is not ambiguous. We do not know for certain who donated it, but it was probably the Grand Duke of Tuscany. It was not only the mantle, because he had visual catalogues made in which one can see that there were also anklets, but unfortunately only the mantle has come down to us.

The mantle was recently restored…
When I arrived here, the state of conservation of the mantle was seriously compromised. No one dared to touch it because it needed restoration; it was enough to open the tissue paper and the feathers would fall off. It was extremely fragile. After several attempts to secure sponsorship, we managed to restore it through Restituzioni, a project of Banca Intesa. It was a very costly intervention – 70,000 euros – carried out at the Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence, involving very long and meticulous work. Of all the mantles I have seen, I think ours was the most worn, perhaps precisely because it had been more exposed.
It was an incredible experience to see the mantle leave here black and return as a colored mantle. With laser techniques, wonderful things can be done. After the restoration we decided to put it on display, and we remain very firm in the decision that the mantle will not leave here. In other words, while the Naturalia section is exhibited at MUDEC, the Museum of Cultures, the mantle is here. It is one of the most precious items in the Settala Collection, and we certainly will not allow it to leave.


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@Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milano

Where does the interest in restoring the mantle come from, at a time when finally – even in Europe, including, slowly, in Italy – there is talk of contemporary indigenous art and decolonization?
In fact, we had been trying to restore it for decades, but we lacked sponsorship, because there are orders of precedence and also specific destinations for funding. Some sponsors decide where resources will be invested. In this case, they did not – we were the ones who decided it had to be the mantle. Over the years we sought other forms of sponsorship, but they ultimately led nowhere, and with this opportunity from Banca Intesa we finally managed to do what we had wanted to do for a very, very long time.
We take pride in not following trends. No, the mantle is a very precious element of the history of a people, just like everything else we have here. These are very precious objects, and as such we keep them, preserve them, and study them. Therefore, it was not done in response to this particular interest, but precisely because it is an important piece for us. We had to insist because the budget was high, and after the restoration we had to think about how to display the mantle, where it could be placed, and what the best position would be. A complex study had to be carried out in relation to all these aspects. I can say that it was absolutely not driven by the current wave of enthusiasm. Personally, I am very allergic to cultural trends, and therefore I can state that the restoration of the mantle was done because we finally found the possibility to do it.

What choices were made for the installation/exhibition?
First of all, a very practical element: where it was possible to place the display case, which is very large. The reliquary was placed in the Hall of Columns. In addition, a study of the lighting also had to be carried out. We needed a room that had light, but also a certain degree of protection, because light is also a dangerous element. We also wanted it to be a room where there was some piece from the Settala Collection. We therefore chose a fifteenth-century room – the Sala delle Colonne – overlooking the Cortile degli Spiriti Magni, which is the true center of Milan, and where the mantle can also be seen from above, because the room has a mirrored balcony on the upper floor. We decided that this was the best place to position the mantle.

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@Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milano

Glicéria Tupinambá, the artist who brought the mantle to the Venice Biennale and one of the three indigenous artists representing Brazil, visited the mantle at the Pinacoteca during her European tour of visits to the mantles, accompanied by Robson Dias, with whom she is making a film. How was your meeting?
I think Glicéria realized that for us the mantle is not a trophy but, like all the things preserved here, a heritage of humanity, and as such we preserve it, safeguard it, and study it. This is the purpose of the Ambrosian Institute. Our meeting was very long – more than four hours. I wanted to explain to her the importance the mantle has for us. I also wanted them to understand the difference between how the mantle came here and how things arrived in Copenhagen. There, there was a whole colonial idea of exploiting the resources of Brazil, which never existed in the holdings of the Pinacoteca. Our first and most important interest is – and always has been – ethnographic interest: the desire to enable our culture to understand a distant culture, and I think she felt this.

Glicéria told me that she was very happy with the meeting. How did you, as a man of the Church, experience the encounter with a mantle that Glicéria defines as “an ancestor long silenced,” emphasizing how for her – and for her community – the mantle is a living being?
This meeting seemed very logical to me. I always say one thing: when you deal with culture in a very clear and honest way, you are able to enter the mind of the other. Therefore, it is logical that the encounter with this artifact, for someone who lives in a particular context, should have a significant impact and a very strong and particular meaning. So I found it very natural. I am Catholic, but I work with Shingon Buddhism, I work with Shintoism; therefore it is very natural that such emotion exists when coming into contact with a 500-year-old artifact that is so particular. When I see certain things, I feel a profound emotion, because if we establish this contact with an object, that object is capable of transmitting thoughts and stories that – obviously – one must have the capacity to listen to. And I think that precisely this was perceived on both sides.