ABSTRACT
Chapter 9 traces the events of the project of the National Museum of Naval History, prepared in 2007 by the ISMM (Istituto di Studi Militari Marittimi), in collaboration with other institutions, including the Superintendency, of which the author was an official at the time, responsible for the Arsenal.
In 2000, Rear Admiral Paolo Pagnottella was appointed as head of the Institute and of the Arsenal complex. He set to work immediately, seriously committed to creating a world-class Navy Museum within the Arsenal. In 2002, the Arsenal Project Steering Committee was established, with a protocol signed by the Navy, the State Property Agency, the Superintendency, the Municipality, MIT, and others: the result was an ambitious museum project, whose major features are here reconstructed.
The implementation of the museum project would have contributed to re-unifying the Arsenal, opening it up to the city, guaranteeing permeability and visibility of the settlement as a whole, while promoting the preservation of the complex. Establishing a museum could have guaranteed the integrity and values of the complex over the long term: the new use was compatible with the character of the spaces and the execution was strongly oriented to preservation.
