Milan and Naples, the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana and the Museum and Royal Park of Capodimonte: two cities and two museum institutions with deeply distinct histories and identities come together in a single joint project, Classical Collapse, by the artist Nicola Samorì. The project goes beyond the logic of a "double exhibition" to present itself as a unified cultural operation, conceived from the outset to be developed in two locations that are interconnected and in dialogue.

Curated by Demetrio Paparoni, Alberto Rocca (Director of the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana), and Eike Schmidt (Director of the Museum and Royal Park of Capodimonte), this exhibition - at the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana from November 28, 2025, to January 13, 2026, and at the Museum and Royal Park of Capodimonte from November 29, 2025, to March 1, 2026 - serves as a bridge between North and South, between ancient and contemporary, between the past of the great painting and sculpture tradition and its reinvention in the present. 

At the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, the project is centered around a monumental painting specially created by Samorì (500 x 1000 cm) that will be exhibited alongside the preparatory cartoon for Raphael's The School of Athens.

The exhibition continues in the Ambrosiana Library, in the corridor housing the funerary monument to Gaston de Foix del Bambaia and in the Crypt.

In the rooms of the Ambrosiana Library, Samorì will address the theme of vanitas with a series of still lifes painted on marble and copper, inspired by the flower vases of Jan Brueghel the Elder and the drawings of Leonardo collected in the Atlantic Codex. The concept of selection and cataloging unites these works, creating a surprising resonance between Brueghel's Flower Vase with Jewelry and Shells and Raphael's The School of Athens: two universes constructed through the juxtaposition of presences, floral or human, confined in the same space despite belonging to different seasons or eras.