MILAN.- Fondazione Prada presents "Global Antiquity," a research exhibition curated by Salvatore Settis, Anna Anguissola, and Chiara Ballestrazzi and designed by Rem Koolhaas and AMO/OMA, in its Milan venue from 5 November 2026 to 1 March 2027 (press preview: Wednesday, 4 November). "Global Antiquity" offers an unprecedented perspective on the interactions between the cultures of the Mediterranean and those of Asia over a broad timespan, from approximately 600 BC to 1000 AD.

The exhibition is part of a wider investigation undertaken by Fondazione Prada since 2015, when it simultaneously presented "Serial Classic" and "Portable Classic" in its Milan and Venice spaces, two exhibitions curated by Salvatore Settis (with Anna Anguissola in Milan, and Davide Gasparotto in Venice). The research continued in 2022 in Milan with "Recycling Beauty" (curated by Salvatore Settis and Anna Anguissola with Denise La Monica), a project dedicated to the reuse of Greek and Roman antiquities in post-antique contexts, from the Middle Ages to the Baroque era.

The underlying premise of this comprehensive survey is the desire to think of ancient art not simply as a legacy of the past, but also as a vital element with the power to affect our present and future. Such themes as seriality, reuse, recycling, and globality are closely linked to our conception of modernity, but they also attest to the extraordinary persistence of certain values, categories, and models of the past. Through an innovative curatorial approach and experimental exhibition formats developed by Rem Koolhaas and AMO/OMA, ancient heritage becomes, in Salvatore Settis' words, "a key that provides access to the multiplicity of cultures in the contemporary world."

Through an accurate selection of over 150 artworks and artifacts, "Global Antiquity" offers a unique perspective on the artistic, cultural, commercial, and political ties that, over 1,600 years of history, connected peoples and cultures from the Mediterranean to Asia, across continents and seas. Each of the objects on display, coming from different parts of the world, becomes a narrative element that attests to meaningful connections between two or more geographic regions and societies, often far apart from each other. From this perspective, where an artifact is found is just as important as where it was originally produced. Connecting these points on a world map reveals a multitude of trade routes and political, cultural, economic, and religious ties that extend far beyond the so-called Silk and Spice Roads. The ancient world emerges as a dense and dynamic web of exchange extending across continents.

"Global Antiquity" highlights the close and reciprocal nature of these connections that did not simply develop along linear one-way pathways but formed a fluid and constantly evolving polygonal network. By showcasing unexpected "Mediterranean" presences in Asia, or displaying a female statuette of the Indian subcontinent that arrived in Pompeii before the AD 79 eruption, the exhibition creates a space-time short circuit, prompting us to rethink our view of history and reflect on the present from a long-term perspective.

Two of the project's underlying themes resonate powerfully in contemporary public debate: the concept of globality—a commonplace and a controversial topic in today's political and economic discourse—and the complex phenomenon of cultural hybridization. On the one hand, "Global Antiquity" reminds us that, in the words of the writer Amitav Ghosh, "it is impossible to imagine a world without global connections. They have always existed, and no place has escaped their formative influence." In particular, the exhibition explores the dialectical relationship between the concepts of globality and globalization. As the exhibition reveals, the concept of "globality" is more closely related to the ancient world and follows horizontal, osmotic, and reciprocal dynamics, whereas "globalization" refers to a modern or contemporary system defined by vertical processes driven by economic and political forces operating on a global scale. On the other hand, the intensity and multiplicity of the cultural exchanges analyzed in "Global Antiquity" provide a solid foundation for challenging today's dominant identity-based rhetoric and protectionist and isolationist dynamics, based on the idea that every cultural and ethnic group constitutes a self-contained fortress, besieged by "others," and therefore to be defended at all costs.

As Salvatore Settis explains, "This exhibition offers a constellation of exemplary cases, each marked by its own form of cross-cultural interaction but all traceable to a single narrative: the polygonal network of trade and influence that spanned Eurasia, extending beyond its borders and fostering mutual awareness and curiosity on a massive scale. From our atlas of microhistories, a macrohistory thus emerges in which pre-modern globality appears as a state of unstable equilibrium, yet open to countless possibilities."

The exhibition design, conceived by Rem Koolhaas with Giulio Margheri and the AMO/OMA team, unfolds on the ground floor of the Podium, the main space of the Milan venue. The design translates the curatorial thesis into a series of individual stories, each presented through a display that reflects the different networks of exchange. These displays, made of metal and fiberglass, are organized within a layout that invites visitors to explore the exhibition's artworks and artifacts according to principles of convergence, symmetry, and intersection.

The principle of convergence applies, for example, to the presence of objects from different contexts in a single location—as seen at the site of Begram in Afghanistan—revealing the existence of strong trade and cultural networks that connected very distant regions. The so-called Begram hoard, discovered in the late 1930s and now housed in the Kabul Museum and the Mus�e Guimet in Paris, comprises luxury items that belonged to the refined local elites and arrived there between the 1st and 2nd centuries AD from a vast area spanning the Roman Empire, Western Asia, Han China, India, and neighboring regions. The idea of convergence can also be exemplified by a single object, such as the casket discovered at Belmonte Piceno in the Marche region and crafted between 560 and 540 BC—a masterpiece in ivory with precious inlaid amber figures. The materials used are evidence of extensive trade networks: ivory came from Africa or Asia via the eastern Mediterranean trade routes, while amber was imported from the far-off Baltic Sea, traveling across Europe to the Adriatic. The scenes and figures from Etruscan and Greek culture decorating the casket show influences foreign to the local Picene tradition, attesting instead to a deep knowledge of Hellenic culture made possible by the circulation of Greek black-figure pottery in the Mediterranean.

The idea of symmetry can be found in the recurrence of almost identical iconographic motifs in objects and artifacts from distant eras and regions. This is exemplified by two extremely rare objects on display: the silver coin depicting Alexander and the Indian king Porus (c. 325–23 BC), likely minted in Babylon during the time of Alexander the Great, and the Cameo of Shapur I, victor over Roman emperor Valerian (c. AD 260–70), from Sassanid Iran. Both works employ a figurative language that emphasizes a ruler's superiority over his defeated adversary. While belonging to different contexts, the silver coin and the sardonyx cameo serve the same ideological function: to translate military victory and the subjugation of the enemy into an image that legitimizes and celebrates the power of a king—Greek in one case and Persian in the other.

The exhibition illustrates the intersection of cultures with objects and artifacts that highlight specific instances of artistic hybridization. One such case is the gold overlay of the Scythian gorytos (mid-4th century BC), discovered in Melitopol, Ukraine—a bow-and-arrow case that was part of the military and ceremonial equipment of the nomadic peoples of Iranian origin who inhabited the Eurasian steppes, from the Black Sea region to Central Asia. It is decorated with scenes from Greek mythology, specifically episodes from the life of Achilles. Its repouss� and chased workmanship, narrative composition in registers, and vegetal decorative motifs belong to the Greek goldsmithing tradition. This artifact, used by the Scythian military elite, is concrete evidence of the intensity of interactions between the Greek world and the steppes in the 4th century BC, which gave rise to new artistic forms drawing on a variety of cultural traditions.

The exhibition path at the center of the Podium begins and ends with two groups of works that act as the project's prologue and epilogue. The first triptych includes the Roman marble bust of the "Indian Priest" (late 2nd century AD) from the Museo Nacional del Prado, the seated Buddha meditating in the lotus position (2nd–3rd century AD) from the Museo delle Civilt� in Rome—an example of the Buddhist art of Gandhāra (a region corresponding to modern-day northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan), and a Roman bust on loan from a private collection, said to portray Apollonius of Tyana (c. 2nd century AD), a Greek philosopher and thaumaturge of the Roman era who, according to his biographer Philostratus, traveled to northwestern India to learn Eastern wisdom. By juxtaposing these three works, the exhibition aims to show how Indian culture and religion were the subject of deep interest and curiosity in the Greco-Roman world. The second triptych explores the transformation of the figure of Buddha into that of a Christian saint. The standing schist Buddha (1st–3rd centuries AD) from the Gandhāra region, preserved in the Museo delle Civilt� in Rome; the carved marble slab depicting an apologue from the lives of Saints Barlaam and Josaphat (c. 1225–30), on loan from the Museo della Cattedrale in Ferrara; and the icon of Saints Barlaam and Josaphat from Asia Minor (1799), on loan from the Byzantine and Christian Museum in Athens, represent three phases of a long process of cultural transmission, assimilation, and reinterpretation, in which the figure of Buddha is progressively transformed from a model of Indian wisdom into an image of Christian sainthood.

A focus is dedicated to textiles from the Vatican Museums and Qatar displayed in an external container connected to the Podium. The exhibition also takes a closer look at the possible Chinese origin of the head of the Lion of St. Mark—situated on a column in the Piazzetta next to the Doge's Palace in Venice—as an example of artistic and cultural connections along extensive trade and exchange routes.

"Global Antiquity" features statues and sculptural fragments, reliefs, inscriptions, plaster casts, chess pieces, coins, textiles, astrolabes, jewelry, drinking horns, jugs, cups, and other everyday and ceremonial objects from private collections and Italian and international museums, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the British Museum in London, the Mus�e du Louvre and the Mus�e Guimet in Paris, the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid, the Vatican Museums, the Museo delle Civilt�, and the Musei Capitolini in Rome, the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, and the Museo archeologico nazionale in Naples.

On the occasion of the exhibition, Fondazione Prada will publish a comprehensive illustrated volume with graphic design by 2x4. It includes an introduction by Miuccia Prada, President and Director of Fondazione Prada; a critical text by Salvatore Settis; 27 essays by Italian and international scholars; an extensive series of detailed catalogue entries for the works on display, written by more than 40 contributors; and a series of thematic and historical maps that trace the geopolitical transformations and connections between Europe, Asia, and the Mediterranean from approximately 600 BC to AD 1000. The book will also be available in the new "Dispense" series, which features a selection of Fondazione Prada catalogues, reprinted in medium format and in black and white.