Home

History adventure Explore now

Welcome To

KNOT | Knowledge of Things: Reassessing the Indigenous American Heritage in Italy

 

is the website of the homonymous project whose aim is to map and study the Indigenous American cultural heritage preserved in Italian institutions. This website wants to be an open portal for everybody to access the Indigenous American heritage in Italy and discover its richness, both in terms of the amount of artifacts and of the many stories they can tell. It is our hope that scholars, students and the general public, both Indigenous and non Indigenous, will use the KNOT website as a starting point to build new relationships and to forge new stories.

 

Things are living knots of relations that connect people across time and space. Through these entanglements, they weave a tapestry of stories that – despite their often dissonant nature – call to be told and shared, so that a more respectful and decolonized future may take form.

The website gathers stories, facts and experiences about Indigenous American heritage preserved in Italian museums and institutions. It brings together research, documentation, and storytelling to make collections visible, connected, and accessible to a broad audience.

 

The HERITAGE section is organized into two complementary paths: ROUTES and MUSEUMS.

 

ROUTES invite visitors to explore the histories of selected artifacts or groups of objects through immersive scrollytelling narratives, to trace their biographies across time and space, highlighting their cultural meanings, trajectories, and contemporary relevance.

 

MUSEUMS provides an overview of Italian institutions that preserve Indigenous American material culture, spanning different regions and historical periods.

 

Click below to start the journey!

News & update

In August 2025, KNOT took part in an international research workshop at the University of Toronto within the framework of the “Hidden Stories” project (https://hiddenstories.library.utoronto.ca/ou...

August 18th, 2025

On April 17th, 2025, the research teams of CNR ISPC and Sapienza University of Rome carried out an intensive digital documentation campaign at the Museo delle Civiltà in Rome, as part of the ongoing ...

April 17th, 2025

On March 7th 2025, a team from CNR ISPC carried out a site visit to the Museo delle Civiltà in Rome as part of the ongoing activities of the PRIN KNOT – Knowledge of Things project. The meeting bro...

March 7th, 2025

From 3rd to 7th of March 2025, KNOT carried out an advanced non-invasive diagnostic campaign on the Codice Magliabechiano (Banco Rari 232) at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale of Florence. The campaig...

March 3rd, 2025

Bologna, University of Bologna, Department of History, Cultures and Civilisations (DISCI). On 9th and 10th December, the first workshop of the PRIN KNOT project was held. The event, reserved for proj...

December 9th, 2024

2024 was a year spent visiting some of the museums that agreed to take part in the project. In addition to ongoing communication by email, between January and July Davide Domenici and Anna Bottesi vis...

November 30th, 2024

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has opened the exhibition “We Live in Painting. The Nature of Color in Mesoamerican Art”, an immersive exploration of Mesoamerican color, art, and scie...

September 18th, 2024

On 11–12 July 2024, the research team of the PRIN KNOT – Knowledge of Things project conducted an extensive digital documentation campaign at the Museo Etnologico Missionario in Colle Don Bosco (A...

July 11th, 2024

On March 6th 2024, a team from CNR ISPC carried out a site visit to the Museo delle Civiltà in Rome as part of the ongoing activities of the PRIN KNOT – Knowledge of Things project. The meeting bro...

May 6th, 2024

On January 29–30, 2024, the PRIN KNOT – Knowledge of Things project officially began with a kick-off meeting held at the Museo delle Civiltà (MUCIV) in Rome. The event marked the start of a multi...

January 29th, 2024

The KNOT website is a collaborative and ongoing project is the website of the homonymous project whose aim is to map and study the Indigenous American cultural heritage preserved in Italian institutions. This website wants to be an open portal for everybody to access the Indigenous American heritage in Italy and discover its richness, both in terms of the amount of artifacts and of the many stories they can tell. It is our hope that scholars, students and the general public, both Indigenous and non Indigenous, will use the KNOT website as a starting point to build new relationships and to forge new stories.

 

If you would like to take part—whether by pointing us toward a museum collection we may have missed, contributing a biography of a collector that is still lacking, sharing your expertise, or simply letting us know if something needs correction—we would love to hear from you. You can reach us at info@knotproject.it.

 

Every contribution is valued and will be fully acknowledged. Write to us and join our community!