Books - Finestre sull'Arte

A note in the margin of Silvia Cecchini's volume on Leonardo's Last Supper.

Impeccable narrative, that of the restoration of Leonardo's Last Supper, which Silvia Cecchini has published in the 333 pages, a fateful number, of her Building on Rubble, the same number of pages as a much-talked-about book that came out a few years...
Read more...

An excursus on notebooks in art history. Emanuele Pellegrini's book

An essay by Emanuele Pellegrini, of great density and wide range for how medium-sized the volume is, places at the center of a series of investigations the multifaceted reality of the Notebook, a privileged place where live observations, idea...
Read more...

Marvelous Parma in an outstanding volume of art

As neve al sol si disigilla sings Dante at the climax of his Paradise: so at the end of this perilous winter a blazing sun rises over Parma to sprinkle the city's entire life, its awareness of being an incomparable place for art o...
Read more...

"At the beginning of the most terrible tragedies is ignorance." Humanity, Ai Weiwei's book on the refugee crisis

Few artists like Ai Weiwei (Beijing, 1957) have devoted so much attention, so much perseverance, and so much of their output to the theme of the migrant and refugee crisis. Not only with works (stand out, among many others, Reframe, the installat...
Read more...

From Caravaggio to Klimt, Cellini to Picasso. The stolen masterpieces in Luca Nannipieri's new book.

Wereceive and publish the following review of Luca Nannipieri's book Stolen Masterpieces (Skira, 2019). There has always been struggle around art, and this masthead had already dealt with the subject, on the occasion of the exhibition The War ...
Read more...

Caravaggio, Our Lady of Mercy. A book on the "Seven Works" of the Pio Monte of Naples.

We receive and publish the following review of the book Caravaggio, Nostra Signora della Misericordia by Gianluca Forgione (texts) and Mauro Magliani (photographs), ArtchivePortfolio editions. Those who will have visited the ongoing Caravaggio...
Read more...

For a correct relocation of Margherita Sarfatti. Massimo Mattioli's pamphlet

The heavy damnatio memoriae to which Margherita Sarfatti (Venice, 1880 - Cavallasca, 1961) was forced because of her known ties with the Fascist regime did not allow a serene, full and correct evaluation of her dimension as an art critic, drastic...
Read more...

The places and mysteries of Caravaggio in Sicily: a book by Paolo Jorio and Rossella Vodret

We receive and publish the following review on the book Places and Mysteries of Caravaggio by Paolo Jorio and Rossella Vodret. Milan, Rome, Naples, Malta, Syracuse, Messina, perhaps Palermo and then Naples again. These first, concise words with wh...
Read more...

A (non-pocket) guide to understanding ancient gestures

It happens not infrequently that extraordinary works of art are found in full view of everyone in a church or museum or public building and that suddenly from the condition of anonymity or underestimation in which they had remained encapsulated f...
Read more...

From Klimt to Friedrich, Repin to Schiele, the other 19th century in a slim book by Eugenio Riccomini

It is well known that several art historians manifest some difficulty when called upon to change their register in order to meet with favor and to arouse the interest of the general public. This is not the case for Eugenio Riccomini (Nuoro, 1936)...
Read more...

For Beato Angelico in Rome: the important first monograph on the subject, by Gerardo de Simone

It has a classical and monumental scope in the monograph Il Beato Angelico a Roma 1445-1455. Rebirth of the Arts and Christian Humanism in the Urbe of Nicholas V and Leon Battista Alberti, the latest work by Gerardo de Simone (Castellammare di St...
Read more...

Crossing the Walls. About the autobiography of Marina Abramovi?.

Life as a journey is a collection of moments, some of which are full of joy and are remembered with pleasure, others are painful and, being more difficult to forget, are actually the very ones that allow one to develop great strength. We are born...
Read more...

From Article 9 traitors to Isis: it's an attack on art. Simona Maggiorelli's latest book

In the fall of 2015, Antonio Natali, who was preparing to hand over the directorship of the Uffizi to Eike Schmidt, gave one of his last interviews as director to a program on the La 7 network: Questioned as to why art is destroyed (the reference w...
Read more...

If paintings could talk, they would say fewer jibes than their creator

If we were to try to enter any bookstore today, we would find the literary labors of Stefano Guerrera (the one from "If Paintings Could Talk," the Facebook page where he publishes pictures of works of art accompanied by nice - or at least such in the...
Read more...

Isabella d'Este. The Lady of the Renaissance - by Lorenzo Bonoldi

It is not easy to keep a reader glued to a book about the relationship between Isabella d'Este and the arts: because the subject matter is not the easiest, because the history of the Mantuan Renaissance is much less well known than that of other rena...
Read more...

Giorgione. The Tempest - by Maria Daniela Lunghi

Everything has been written about Giorgione 's Tempest, but any new contribution that can help, in a serious way, to shed light on the great mystery that has been posing questions to all who observe it for centuries is always welcome. For, as is well...
Read more...