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New York - The other day I was asked when did I think that "our museum would be completed". My immediate answer was: "Never, I hope!" I hope never because when a museum is "completed", the history of a people, in our case the Italian American people, would be over, and the museum would only represent what "was" which would mean that our people would have ceased to matter and contribute to the culture of our country, which is now America. It will be the task of our museum not only to preserve a record of anything significant in our history but also to discover and showcase the most talented artists, sculptors, photographers, movie makers, musicians, and other contemporary Italian Americans even in computer sciences and technology who, in their turn will be thus remembered by future generations and become part of " our history and cultural heritage".

Hopefully this process will continue FOREVER. Often, when I go to some fund raising Gala evening organized by Italian American Institutions or Foundations, I hear the speakers talk of "our history and cultural heritage" to which they invariably add the names of Leonardo and Michelangelo as representatives of our Italian ancestors, artists or, better still, painters. And that always bothers me for several reasons. While undoubtedly they were both universal geniuses without equal, and both painted some great masterpieces, neither had any great impact in the history of Italian or European painting for that matter. By far more influential were for example, Giotto (c.1266-1337), Masaccio (1401-1427) although he died so very young, Titian ( 1488-1576) and even Caravaggio (1573 - 1610) just to mention a few While Michelangelo was also a great architect, others such as Brunelleschi (1377-1446) the founder of Renaissance architecture, Gian Battista Alberti, Bramante, who strongly influenced Michelangelo, and Palladio (1508-1580) whose style and concepts are still followed today, had much more historical significance and impact.

Art must always be seen and judged in the context of history and the time in which the artist produced his work. The aim of the Italian American Museum therefore is to discover and reveal the Italian American Leonardo and Michelangelo of today, a time quite different than 500 years ago when most of the great artists made a living by making religious or historic paintings for their patrons which were for the most part the Church or the city state rulers of their day. Today, a "contemporary" genius may be a movie director or an architect who has developed new ways to build a bridge or a skyscraper for example.

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