Rome’s Palazzo Merulana is redefining the summer cultural experience with a rich new program that blends retrospective depth with forward-looking energy. Set in the elegant early twentieth-century palazzo in the Esquilino district, the museum presents itself this season as a place where permanent collections, temporary exhibitions, and even a new café converge. The promise is a full immersion in art — a plunge meant to refresh both the eye and the mind.
From July 9 to September 27, 2026, Palazzo Merulana hosts Lirismo Indifeso – Percezioni Riflesse, a solo exhibition dedicated to the work of Franco Onali, curated by Jacopo Bucciantini. The exhibition sets out to offer a critical reinterpretation of Onali’s artistic production, bringing together a selection of paintings and audiovisual materials that highlight the structural underpinnings of his figurative research.
Rather than following a conventional chronological or anthological framework, the curatorial approach favors a journey through the visual and poetic grammar that has defined more than fifty years of activity. Onali’s painting is characterized by a strong expressive autonomy and a constant lyrical tension. His method of constructing images avoids rigid theoretical systems, developing instead through intuitive associations, inner suggestions, and deeply imaginative processes. The result is an exhibition that asks visitors to engage not with a timeline but with the very language of the artist’s vision.
Until October 4, 2026, the museum also presents Scuola Italiana — La Pittura Contemporanea e il Suo Spirito Circolare nel Tempo Storico, a project that begins with an investigation into the state of contemporary figurative painting in Italy. Curated by Marziani, this first installment focuses on the work of Nicola Pucci.
The project argues that any serious reflection on Italian art today must start again from the universal matrix of the painting — the quadro — and operate through new synergies between traditional means and electronic and digital evolution. Inside the surface of the painting, the exhibition argues, lies an iconographic genealogy that begins in the fourteenth century and extends to the present day. Painting is the seed that has yielded the finest fruits of the image, a genetic code of which local tradition is the custodian, resonating through historic palazzi, countless churches, archaeological excavations, storerooms and archives.
Marziani describes the project as a reaffirmation of the specific weight of Italian thought in art. Far from being merely a commercial brand, the idea of thinking Italian and painting Italian has, in his view, forged major movements and avant-gardes — Futurism, Metaphysics, Magic Realism, and the postmodern currents of Transavanguardia, Colta Painting, and Medialism. The exhibition is both an assertion of continuity and an invitation to look forward.
Beyond the two temporary exhibitions, Palazzo Merulana offers visitors a permanent collection that continues to grow in appeal. This season sees the addition of a digital art installation, bringing a contemporary technological dimension to the museum’s spaces. And for those who wish to linger, a new café has opened inside the Sala delle Sculture — the Sculpture Hall — allowing guests to enjoy a coffee surrounded by artworks, turning a museum visit into a more relaxed and convivial experience.
Both exhibitions are accessible with a single ticket. The full ticket is priced at €13, with a reduced ticket at €11 available for a wide range of categories including visitors under twenty-six, those over sixty-five, active teachers, FAI members, IED students and staff, holders of Trenitalia regional tickets, and many others. School groups benefit from a reduced rate of €4 per student, with a booking fee of €20 for classes of up to twenty-five. Groups of ten to twenty people pay €11 per person with a €30 booking fee. Free entry is granted to children under seven, one teacher per ten students, one companion per ten visitors, disabled visitors with an accompanying person, holders of the Pass Palazzo Merulana and Pass Palazzo Merulana Young, ICOM members, and licensed tour guides. Visitors using reduced or free tickets are required to show valid identification at the entrance.
With its layered programming — spanning a lyrical retrospective, a broad survey of contemporary Italian painting, a digital intervention, and a new gathering space — Palazzo Merulana positions itself this summer as a place where tradition and innovation meet, and where art is not just observed but lived.
Photo cover: Palazzo Merulana
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