.jpg)
Calliope Arts
Documenting women’s stories, today and through the centuries.
A project for the ‘restoration’ of women’s creative achievements,
through research, awareness, conservation and cultural exchange.
Calliope Arts also raises awareness through Restoration Conversations livestream broadcasts and bi-annual magazine.
.jpg)
About
Find out about our programmes and guiding principles as the Restoration Conversation
project makes a start.
Our magazine
Our SPRING / SUMMER 2026 issue is now 'out' in its digital version.
Press the cover to read the magazine online.
Explore untold stories and tales of talent, in history and today.
Restoration Conversations is also the title of our bi-annual magazine. Whet your appetite with events and articles.
What to watch...
Marco Badiani, Exhibition installation view. All images are courtesy of the Innocenti Institute's Historical Archive
Calliope Arts Foundation presents Restoration Conversations at Villa Il Palmerino. In this episode, presenter Linda Falcone speaks to estate co-owner Federica Parretti about artist Lola Costa, writer Vernon Lee and the Florentine estate’s role in creating a ‘garden of one’s own’, as a creative space for generations of women.
Reading up...
The Curators' Quaderno
Girls in the Innocenti Archive - Issue 8
The Innocenti Hospital’s historical archive in Florence comprises more than 13,000 documents and objects from the thirteenth to the twentieth centuries, including ‘tokens’ that parents left with their foundling children, as proof of identity. Located in the ancient refectory, the archive hosts one of the world’s most unique archival collections, that of the city’s foundling children – mostly girls. In a multi-faceted research and restoration project, curators and conservators discover, restore and digitize touching mementos, from 1900 to 1921, a time of great change for women known as ‘the hidden pregnant’. It uncovers a world where girls were seen as an expense not a resource, and tells the story of history’s forgotten – its children… starting with little girls.
This issue is published in conjunction with the Innocenti Institute in Florence, for the project ‘Girls in the Innocenti Archives’ and the museum exhibit of the same name (13 November to March 15, 2025) at the Innocenti Museum. The project was created as a partnership between the Innocenti Institute and the Calliope Arts Foundation, thanks to the generous support of donors Connie and Doug Clark and Margie MacKinnon and Wayne McArdle.
What is tcq? The Curators’ Quaderno is a collection of notebook-style publications, conceived by the Calliope Arts Foundation, in collaboration with The Florentine Press, to raise awareness of women’s contributions to the fields of art, science and culture.
Looking forward...
Books on their feet by Elena Salvini Pierallini, ph. Marco Badiani at Villa La Quiete
Summer Programme 2026
THE GARDEN PROJECT
Throughout her more than sixty-year career, Tuscan artist Elena Salvini Pierallini (1934–2024) produced an eclectic oeuvre largely comprised of embroidery, photography and book art. Monographic and pop-up exhibitions featuring the artist’s work are planned in several Florentine venues this summer, in addition to dance performances, lectures and a community art event for contemporary artists and the public at large. This programme calendar forms part of ‘The Garden Project’, a three-year cultural programme that began in 2024, organised by Il Palmerino Cultural Association and Calliope Arts Foundation, in collaboration with the British Institute of Florence. For more...
Header Photo: © Olga Makarova, all images from the Archivio Studio Wulz are © Archivi Alinari, Firenze
Three main photos (left to right) by: Viola Paretti, CinestudioItaly, Chris Henley