Giovanni Pinna

Giovanni Pinna (born in Turin, Italy, 1939) is a Professor in Paleontology and a museologist. For over thirty years (1964-1996) he has been a member of the staff of the Natural History Museum in Milan – the largest of its kind in Italy. He started his career there as Curator in Paleontology and in 1981 was appointed Director of the Museum, a post he held until 1996.
His scientific activity has been mainly focused on Ammonites, Triassic reptiles, and fossil Crustacea, subjects to which he has dedicated several publications. One of his most important achievements has been the discovery of the Lower Jurassic Fossil-lagerstätte at Osteno on the Lake of Lugano; this is one of the few geological sites where the soft parts of fossil organisms are preserved; other successes have been the description of the new class of crustacea, Thylacocephala, and the description of some new genera of fossil reptiles.
He is also interested in the problem of mass extinction and in several papers has proposed an alternative to the catastrophic hypotheses; he is, in fact, totally opposed to the theory that the extinction of the dinosaurs and many other taxa could have been caused by the fall of a meteorite towards the end of the Mesozoic Era.

Under his direction, over a period of fifteen years, the Natural History Museum in Milan was completely restructured. It had been badly damaged in 1943, during the war, and in 1952 had been rebuilt in a XIX century style museography; he reorganised the scientific sectors, the laboratories and the offices, increased the staff in the scientific and technical departments, increased the collections, re-ordered the historical archives, boosted both scientific research and the didactic activity of the Museum, promoted a series of permanent exhibitions and renovated most of the 5000 sq. metres of exhibits.
Above all, he succeeded in creating a close relationship, a bond, between the city and its Museum. Thanks to all this renovations, in the early Nineties the Museum in Milan was numbered among the seven great European Natural History Museums, together with those in Madrid, Vienna, Paris, London, Frankfurt and Stockholm.
From 1980 to 1996 he also directed the Planetarium in Milan, renewing the organisation and activity .
In the cultural field, one of his more important achievements was the exhibition Musaeum Septalianum in which material from the 15th century wunderkammer of Manfredo Settala , carefully packed away in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, was shown to the public after many decades. With this exhibition Milan honoured the memory of this 17th century museum and its founder.

Regarding his activity in the field of museum studies, worthy of note is his book “Museo. Storia di una macchina culturale dal cinquecento ad oggi” co-authored with Lanfranco Binni and published in 1980. This can be considered the first manual of museology published in Italy during the post-war period. It is still a classic in the field and the basis of the formation of many Italian museologists.

Today he has turned his attention to the social aspect of museums, to the intellectual organisation and the mechanisms for the production of culture within these institutions, to the relations existing between museums and society, between museums and power.

He is also engaged as a museological consultant, mainly within the sphere of international cooperation. His most recent experiences in the field of museum projects have been taking place in the Shaanxi History Museum of Xi’An (China), the National Museum of Damascus (Syria), the Iran Bastan Museum (Iran), the Museu Dom Bosco of Campo Grande (Brasil) and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

He edits a collection of books on museology. He is editor and director of the six-monthly journal Nuova Museologia on museum studies, which he founded in 1999.

Giovanni Pinna has published about 100 articles and several books on Museology.
He is at present writing a book on the political control of museums.

Giovanni Pinna have been actively involved in the non-governmental organization International Council of Museums (ICOM), in which, over the years, he has held many posts.

• Member of the Executive Council of ICOM ITALY from 1976 to 1981
• Vice Chairperson of ICOM ITALY from 1981 to 1984 and from 1993 to 1996
• Chairperson of ICOM ITALY from 1997 to 2000, and from 2001 to 2004.
• In 1999 he created the ICOM International Committee Historic House Museums and was elected Chairperson of such a Committee, remaining in office until 2002.
• In 2001 he was elected member of the ICOM Executive Council for the term 2001 to 2004
• in 2004 is sent his application as President of ICOM.

As Chairperson of ICOM Italy, he has convinced the Italian government to allow to ICOM members free entrance to museums, archaeological sites and state monuments. By consequence, many Italian municipalities and local governments have given free entrance to museums to ICOM members.