Books

Not Vital's sculpture: an unusual book for a contemporary artist

Alma Zevi counts on a solid training in art history at the Courtauld Institute in London, where, in a temple of the Renaissance, when choosing her thesis subject, she proposed a contemporary theme: the sculpture of Not Vital, a research therefore on ...
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We are all travelers. On the book Psychologia de viaggiatore by Remo Carulli.

Defining what a journey is is a rather simple task, at least on appearances: usually "journey" is understood to mean moving from the place where one resides, permanently or temporarily, to another place, which one imagines is mostly far away or at th...
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The great reflection: The Italian Renaissance Altarpiece, David Ekserdjian's magnum opus

In 2021, the Art Newspaper chose as its book of the year David Ekserdjian's monumental work The Italian Renaissance Altarpiece: an endeavor that we could call "the great reflection" on the greatest pictorial phenomenon of the Italian Renaissance, nam...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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"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...
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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 ...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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)...
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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...
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Crossing the Walls. About the autobiography of Marina Abramović.

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...
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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...
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