Exhibition

Foto: Peter de RuThe bird- and nature museum ”Olivetum” was inaugurated on April 23 1993, by Ola Ullsten, then Swedish ambassador to Rome and formerly both prime minister and foreign secretary in Swedish governments.

The idea behind the museum came from Levente Erdeös, curator of Villa San Michele in those days, who with his background as an architect had made a detailed sketch of how he thought the building should look – a suggestion largely followed.

The main part of the exhibition concerns ornithology, that is the birds of Capri and those passing the island on their migration. The formerly extensive trapping of migrant birds (notably Quails Coturnix coturnix) for human consumption was described, as were Axel Munthe´s efforts to protect the birds. There was originally also an exhibition of local butterflies and of shells from mussels etc. living in the surrounding sea.

The ornithological part of the exhibition is based on ideas and data from Capri Bird Observatory, located in Castello Barbarossa on top of the mountain above Villa San Michele. The scientific data were processed at Ottenby Bird Observatory in Sweden, “mother station” to the Capri observatory. Responsible for that work was Ottenby´s director Jan Pettersson, who in those years was head of the Swedish part of the Swedish-Italian cooperation at Capri Bird Observatory. The layout of the exhibition as such was, however, mainly done by Björn Ed and Helena Broms from the Swedish national exhibition agency “Riksutställningar”.

In addition to texts, pictures and maps, the original exhibition also featured a considerable number of birds carved from and painted on wood, by various Swedish artists. They look very natural! There was also a number of traditionally stuffed birds, but some years ago these were all replaced by wooden birds, cut by Jan Jägsell. The central diorama, illustrating a typical coastal landscape on Capri, is based on a large background view made by the Swedish painter Bengt Böckman.

The year the museum was opened it received a prestigious Italian prize, the “Premio Cyprea”, for its innovative exhibition and as a good example of how to integrate modern architecture into a sensible historical environment.

In 2006, in connection with the celebration of Capri Bird Observatory´s 50th anniversary, the exhibition in “Olivetum” was partly remade – to illustrate the history of the bird observatory and the results from those 50 years of scientific work. This is the exhibition showed today, although it is continuously kept up-to-date in various ways!

Christian Hjort
/responsible for the Swedish part of the Swedish-Italian cooperation at Capri Bird Observatory/