Hello from Federico – ITP Volunteer!

Hello there! My name is Federico, I come from Italy, and I am currently volunteering for the International Training Programme. I graduated in Cultural Heritage Studies at the University of Milan, where I focused on the history of art.

However, I have always had a passion for learning and broadening my knowledge, and I have never managed to restrain my curiosity for art history. I am interested in palaeontology, archaeology, and natural sciences. Also, I love languages and you all must know that anchovies are my favourite food; last but not least, I am mad about cycling…I feel so miserable if I do not ride my bike on a daily basis!

Anyway, in 2013 I came to London in order to take a master’s degree in Cultural and Intellectual History (1300-1650) at the Warburg Institute. I enjoy doing research so much so that I wish to start soon an interdisciplinary PhD in the history of scholarly and natural-historical collecting. Ever since I completed my MA, I have been looking for opportunities in the cultural sector. I consider volunteering a great way to acquire new skills, know like-minded people, and establish connections. Indeed, I volunteered at the Natural History Museum and the Royal College of Music Museum in order to learn the ropes of collections management, database, cataloguing, and digitisation.

Now, I am taking pride in being a Documentation Volunteer at the British Museum within the International Training Programme, which is based in – wow!! – the Ancient Egypt and Sudan department. It is such an honour to be able to work ‘behind the scenes’ of such a prestigious institution. My job is to help the ITP team to sort out and arrange thousands of pictures taken throughout eleven years of ITP summer programmes, conferences, workshops and various activities. I am therefore carrying out image captioning on Odin, which is the image database of the Museum. I am so happy to be part of this stimulating environment, which brings together museum staff from all over the world with the aim of enhancing their skills and improving the preservation of our cultural heritage.