I Tatti is pleased to announce that the 2026 I Tatti Mongan Prize has been awarded to Neil MacGregor.
The I Tatti Mongan Prize is given to a distinguished scholar of Renaissance art or connoisseurship who carries into a new generation the qualities of imaginative scholarship, personal generosity, and devotion to the institutions of art history that were exemplified in their own generation by Agnes and Elizabeth Mongan. Founded by a gift from Melvin Seiden, the prize was first conferred in 1988 on Sydney Freedberg, and successively on Craig Hugh Smyth (1992), Sir Ernst Gombrich (1996), Caroline Elam (2003), Paola Barocchi (2006), Elizabeth Cropper (2011), Hans Belting (2013), Marvin Trachtenberg (2016), Miguel Falomir Faus (2018), and Carmen Bambach (2022).
Neil MacGregor is a Scottish art historian and former museum director. He was editor of The Burlington Magazine from 1981 to 1987, and served as Director of the National Gallery, London, from 1987 to 2002, where he oversaw the opening of the Sainsbury Wing and a major rehang of the collection. In 2002 he became Director of the British Museum, a post he held until 2015. During his tenure he presented the BBC Radio 4 series A History of the World in 100 Objects, based on the Museum’s collection. He later served as founding director of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin until 2018, and has presented a number of programmes on art and cultural history for radio and television, including Germany: Memories of a Nation and The Museums That Make Us. He is currently working with the CSMVS Museum in Mumbai on a long-term display of objects designed to allow Indian universities to teach a new history of the ancient world. He is a member of the Order of Merit.
Neil MacGregor's Laureate Lecture will be delivered at I Tatti and live via Zoom on May 28, 2026. Details to follow.