On June 8, 2026, one of the most significant acquisitions in recent Italian cultural history found its permanent home. The Ecce Homo by Antonello da Messina arrived at the MuNDA — National Museum of Abruzzo, housed in the sixteenth-century Castle of L'Aquila, where it will remain as part of the museum's permanent collection. A Goppion high-security display case was designed and built specifically to receive it.
The small double-sided panel, measuring 20.3 × 14.9 × 1 cm, dates to around 1465 and presents on the front Antonello's first interpretation of the Ecce Homo, and on the reverse a penitent Saint Jerome in a landscape of Northern European character. It was rediscovered by art historian Federico Zeri in 1981, having belonged to the Wildenstein collection in New York and probably kept in Spain in the early twentieth century. It was purchased by the Italian Ministry of Culture through the Direzione Generale Musei at Sotheby's New York in February 2026, and arrived in Italy on March 25. Before traveling to L'Aquila, it was exhibited at the Sala Capitolare of Palazzo della Minerva in Rome from March 27 to April 7, drawing exceptional public interest.
The Ecce Homo at Sotheby's, New York, before its acquisition by the Italian Ministry of Culture
The work's significance within Antonello's output is considerable. The Ecce Homo theme occupies a central place in his production, with at least six known versions. This panel is the first and most intimate of the cycle. Each version represents a different chapter in the same investigation — one that is not only pictorial but philosophical: how far can pain be represented?
Its arrival at the MuNDA is also an event of particular resonance for L'Aquila. The city is Capitale della Cultura 2026, and the acquisition marks a decisive step in the cultural renewal of a city still defined in many ways by the 2009 earthquake. The MuNDA itself only recently returned to its historic home within the Forte Spagnolo following the extensive post-earthquake restoration and structural consolidation — a renewal that Goppion contributed to through the design and supply of the museum's new exhibition systems.
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MuNDA - National Museum of Abruzzo
The display case Goppion designed for the Ecce Homo was developed in close collaboration with the MuNDA's direction, Guicciardini & Magni Architetti, and the institutions involved in the exhibition project. Given the extraordinary historical and artistic significance of the work, the case integrates high-security glass and profiles alongside the conservation technologies required to ensure its long-term preservation. The case had to meet the most current international standards while remaining visually unobtrusive, allowing the painting, which measures barely twenty centimeters in height, to be experienced in close and undistracted proximity by the public.
For Goppion, the installation continues a collaboration with the MuNDA that began with the museum's post-earthquake renewal and now extends to the protection of one of the most important works to enter Italian public collections in recent years.
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