As part of the Venice 1600 program, to celebrate the sixteen centuries since the mythical foundation of the city, the Oriental Art Museum announces the exhibition TRAME GIAPPONESI. Costumes and stories of the nō theater at the Museum of Oriental Art in Venice , curated by the director Marta Boscolo Marchi. The exhibition spaces on the top floor of Ca 'Pesaro will host, from 26 March to 3 July 2022 , paintings, prints, photographs, documents, costumes, musical instruments and masks related to one of the most famous Japanese theatrical forms, the nō che theater, thanks to the 13th International Theater Festival of the Venice Biennale in 1954, it arrived in Europe for the first time.

Most of the objects and works on display are part of the museum's collection, which in turn consists mostly of the collection of Prince Henry of Bourbon Parma; to these are added loans from private collections as well as a series of unpublished photographs by Fabio Massimo Fioravanti, who since 1989 has been carrying out research work on the nō theater.

The exhibition makes use of the expertise of scholars from Italian and foreign universities who make up the scientific committee: Monique Arnaud, Marta Boscolo Marchi, Matteo Casari, Andrea Giolai, Diego Pellecchia, Bonaventura Ruperti and Silvia Vesco. 

Inaugurated in 1928, the first Italian state museum to deal with Asian art, the Museum of Oriental Art in Venice houses the large collection of Prince Henry of Bourbon Parma, which became part of the public heritage in 1925 and has since been housed on the top floor of Ca ' Pesaro. Among the works and artefacts in this collection, the Japanese ones from the Edo period (1603 - 1868) stand out - in number and quality - among the most significant for the development of Japanese art. The costumes and works on display are also part of it: paintings, prints and screens show the spread of those events, drawn from poems, legends and stories of the past, which inspired both theatrical texts and iconographies.

The central section of the exhibition, as well as the richest, will be dedicated to stage costumes, purchased by Prince Henry during his long journey around the world between 1887 and 1889, now preserved in the museum's deposits and never exhibited to the public. together so far. In the nō theater the stage costume focuses the spectator's attention by revealing the nature, age and social class of the character; a fundamental role is also that of the mask: to accompany the costumes, some from the collection of Renzo Freschi of Milan will be exhibited.