Cristiana Perrella Appointed President of Pontifical Academy of Fine Arts and Letters

Cristiana Perrella, who became director of Rome's MACRO museum in March 2025, has been appointed president of the Pontifical Insigne Academy of Fine Arts and Letters of the Virtuosi at the Pantheon. The appointment was ratified by Pope Leo XIV. Perrella, a curator and art historian born in 1965, previously led the Luigi Pecci Contemporary Art Center in Prato from 2018 to 2021. Since late 2024, she has served as curator of the contemporary art program Conciliazione 5 for the Dicastery for Culture and Education, inaugurated for the Jubilee. The Academy, founded in 1543 by Pope Paul III, is one of Rome's oldest cultural institutions. Its members have included Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, Taddeo Zuccari, Pietro da Cortona, Velázquez, Borromini, Vanvitelli, Canova, and Valadier. In 1995, under Pope John Paul II, the Academy added classes for writers, poets, and filmmakers. The Academy holds a little-known art collection distributed between the Pantheon and Via della Conciliazione, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, and furniture from the 16th to 20th centuries, with a core group of 19th- and 20th-century portraits and self-portraits. Perrella will oversee the Academy's scientific and cultural activities, representation, and coordination with other pontifical academies and the broader cultural world.