Veronica Sofia Tulli has studied at the University of Pisa and at the Scuola Normale Superiore, where she subsequently collaborated to the redaction of the catalogue entries for the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence. Since 2022 she is a PhD candidate at the same Institution: her thesis examines the history of the statuary cycles of the Apostles from the late Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period in Italy, with a particular focus on their function and placement in sacred spaces.

veronica.tulli@sns.it

The Statue of  Saint John the Baptist by Nino Pisano in the Tribune of Pisa Cathedral

Saint John the Baptist preserved in a niche of the tribune in Pisa Cathedral is a misunderstood gem within Nino Pisano’s catalogue, to whom it has been attributed on only one, now forgotten occasion. Until now, previous studies have been able to rely on a single photographic reproduction of the marble: the images in this essay make it possible to convincingly revive the sculptor’s name and propose a dating of this product to the mid-1460s. A section of the text is devoted to the ‘archaeological’ reconstruction of the material vicissitudes undergone by the work over the years. The relationship that still links the statue of Nino to the much later San Ranieri by Andrea Guardi is rooted in the careful arrangement of these and other monuments in the building shortly after the mid-15th century. The last few paragraphs of the contribution are dedicated to the reception of the Baptist in the decades following its creation, giving therefore an account of its relevance to late Gothic sculptural production in Tuscany and elsewhere.

Marta Caroselli is a restorer (MA in Conservation and Restoration, SUPSI 2010) and conservation scientist (Degree from the University of Parma 2008 and Master from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia 2011) specialised in the study of mortars, wall paintings and stuccos. She obtained her PhD at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in 2015 with a thesis on the radiocarbon dating of mortars. She is currently a lecturer and researcher at the Materials and Construction Institute of SUPSI (University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland), where she directs and participates in research projects on the characterisation and conservation of decorated architectural surfaces and archaeological sites.

Massimo Romeri is a research fellow at the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Turin, where he is conducting research on the library and archive of the art historian Giovanni Romano. In 2019, he was awarded a fellowship by the Fondazione 1563 per l’Arte e la Cultura for a project focused on stucco decorators from the Lugano region active in Turin during the seventeenth century; the outcomes of this research were published in the volume Il percorso di Alessandro Casella, dalla Valtellina al Valentino (2022). His scholarly interests include Lombard painting from the fifteenth to the seventeenth Century, with particular attention to the phenomenon of the dispersal of artworks. He has collaborated with various universities and cultural and museum institutions on exhibitions, research initiatives, and scholarly dissemination.

Alberto Felici studied at the Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence (OPD), where he obtained the qualification of Restorer of Cultural Heritage specialising in mural paintings and stuccoes in 1987. In 2005, he earned a degree in History of Modern Art from the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy at the University of Florence. Since 1987, he has carried out professional restoration work on behalf of Soprintendenze and other public institutions, focusing on mural paintings, stuccoes, and stone materials. Employed at the OPD in Florence since 2001, he has been engaged in restoration, research, and teaching activities at the Florentine institute. Since 2019, he has been working at the Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio in Florence.

marta.caroselli@supsi.ch
massimo.romeri@unito.it
alberto.felici@supsi.ch

Alessandro Casella from Turin to Madonna d’Ongero in Carona: Notes on Style and Technique

Thanks to his remarkable inventiveness and technical skill, the stucco artist Alessandro Casella (c. 1596-1656) was able to secure significant commissions, first in Valtellina – a crucial frontier region for much of the seventeenth century – and later in Turin. The sculptural force of his creations, marked by a caricatural and grotesque temperament, was appreciated at court, where he arrived through his collaboration with Isidoro Bianchi, the artist favored by Cristina di Francia, Duchess of Savoy. By exploiting the properties of the material, Casella managed to give decoration a leading role, making the white stucco the protagonist of the interiors of the Castello del Valentino, one of the most representative buildings of the Savoy court. Like many other artists from the Lake region, he did not sever ties with his homeland: with his work at the Sanctuary of the Madonna d’Ongero in Carona (Lugano), he also demonstrated the skills he had developed even in his native village. The analysis of documents, style, and execution techniques reveals new data on the overall decorative scheme as well as, more broadly, on the working methods and workshop of this master of stucco.

Luisa Sefora Rosaria Puca holds a PhD in Historical, Archaeological and Artistic Sciences and was a research fellow at the University of Naples Federico II. Her studies focus on sculpture in Southern Italy from the Bourbon Restoration to the early decades of the 20th Century and painting in the second half of the 19th century. She has published essays on the Basilica of San Francesco di Paola in Naples, on sculptures in the Royal Palace of Caserta, and on Bertel Thorvaldsen’s influence on Neapolitan sculptors. She has also studied Leonardo da Vinci’s influence on Italian Sculpture up to 1929 and has conducted monographic studies on little-known or forgotten artists, such as the sculptor Angelo Solari and the painter Ernesto Giroux. She has also taken part in university projects in the field of Digital Humanities. In 2024, she co-curated an international conference with Professor Isabella Valente on the state of studies in 19th Century Italian sculpture.

sefora.puca@yahoo.com

New Findings on the Equestrian Statue of Ferdinand I of Bourbon in Naples and on a Model Here Attributed to Antonio Canova

The two colossal Equestrian Monuments in Piazza del Plebiscito in Naples, dedicated to Charles III and Ferdinand I of Bourbon, have an intricate history history that began with the Monument to Napoleon Bonaparte commissioned to Antonio Canova during the French Decade. This study offers a detailed examination of archival sources, contemporary accounts, and surviving models that helps clarify several unresolved issues concerning the Monument of Ferdinand I, left unfinished by Canova in 1822. Specifically, it examines the development of the project over the years, from the first clay maquette of 1820, to the colossal models of 1821, but also the 1823 competition for its completion and the alterations introduced to the horse’s tail during the casting process. Central to this investigation is the identification of a small plaster model of the entire monument, including the rider, here attributed for the first time to Canova, which reveals a previously unknown portrait of Ferdinand I of Bourbon.

Nicola Ciarlo is a doctor in Art History and an independent researcher. His research focuses on Baroque and Late Baroque sculpture in Florence, Rome and Naples, and he has published about these topics in national and international journals such Nuovi Studi, Arte Cristiana, Studi di Storia dell’arte and The Burlington Magazine.

nicolaciarlo@virgilio.it

A Model by Lorenzo Bartolini for the Ammostatore: A New from the Fototeca Zeri

The article discusses a clay head, burnished to simulate bronze, which is preserved at the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum of Munich. Traditionally identified as Bacchus, this fascinating head is regarded by recent studies as a work belonging to the Roman Baroque style. However, this attribution is currently considered unsatisfactory today. Indeed, the head must be identified as the model created by Lorenzo Bartolini for the Ammostatore (Grape-harvester). Starting from the history of the sculpture, the study traces the genesis of a successful model replicated in multiple versions.

Claudio Pizzorusso is a former Full Professor of Contemporary Art History at the University of Naples Federico II. He has also taught at the Universities of Urbino, Florence, and Siena for Foreigners. His fields of research are Painting and Sculpture in Italy (1500-1700), painting and sculpture in France and Italy (1850-1950). He has Curator and Executive or Advisory Committee member of many exhibitions. In 2011 he won the Salimbeni Prize for Art Criticism. He is member of the INASA (National Institute of Archaeology and Art History) and the director of the academic journal «Rivista di Letterature moderne e comparate e Storia delle arti».

claudio.pizzorusso.unina@gmail.com

Libero Andreotti, Philip Sassoon, Jean-Philippe Worth: The Trio of Diana and Actaeon

New archival acquisitions allow for a profound revision of the most celebrated work that Libero Andreotti conceived in the last year of his stay in Paris, the Diana and Actaeon group, intended for Sir Philip Sassoon’s villa at Port Lympne in Kent. The correspondence, largely unpublished, between the sculptor, his client, and Jean-Philippe Worth, who acted as an intermediary, sheds new light on the complex elaboration of this and other sculptures executed between 1913 and 1914. The affair concluded after the Great War, with the casting of the bronze, now at the Galleria Nazionale di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome, which was purchased in 1926 by the bibliophile Tammaro De Marinis.

Leonardo Regano is an art historian specialized at the University of Bologna, where he completed a thesis on early twentieth-century monumental sculpture, examining the intersections of art and politics with a focus on identity and gender constructions in interwar sculpture. He is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, researching the sculptures of the Foro Italico. He has taught contemporary art history, art criticism, and curatorial practices as an adjunct lecturer at the University of Bologna and the Academies of Fine Arts in Verona and Brescia. In parallel with his academic research, he pursues an active curatorial practice, with interests in relational practices, collective processes, and public art. He is the curator of Under the same sky by Eva Marisaldi at the Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Marzabotto, realized in collaboration with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

leonardo.regano@gmail.com

From Rome to Santiago de Chile: The Public Sculpture of Aroldo Bellini (Perugia, 1902 – Rome, 1984), a ‘Forgotten’ Twentieth-Century Italian Sculptor

Aroldo Bellini (1902-1984) was a prominent exponent of the Return to Order movement in European sculpture. Trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Perugia, he achieved early professional acclaim, culminating in a leading role in the sculptural decoration of Rome’s Foro Italico at the height of his career. In the Post-World War II era, his work fell into significant critical obscurity, despite sustained interest from scholars such as Fortunato Bellonzi and Bruno Mantura. The donation of his archive to the Academy of Fine Arts in Perugia in 2010 has since facilitated new research into his artwork. This article examines Bellini’s principal public commissions, with particular attention to the works he produced during his time in Chile between 1953 and 1968.

Duccio Nobili is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. He studied Art History at the Università Cattolica in Milan (B.A. and M.A.) and Scuola Normale (PhD). During his PhD he was Junior Fellow at the Paul Mellon Centre in London and subsequently Paris-Rome Fellow and Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Bibliotheca Hertziana and DFK – German Center for Art History in Paris. His research focuses on two main areas of interest: on the one hand sculpture and theory of sculpture of the twenty century, with a specific focus on Italian and European sculpture of the Post-War period; on the other, transnational exchanges between Eastern and Western Europe during the Cold War, with a particular focus on the European rediscovery of the Russian Avant-Garde during the Sixties and the Seventies.

duccio.nobili@sns.it

A Work that is «tanto, tanto amata». Around Two David  by Giacomo Manzù

This paper focuses on two sculptures by Italian artist Giacomo Manzù (Bergamo, 1908-1991): the two versions of David, realized respectively in 1936 and 1939. These two works deal with the representation of the masculine body in a radically different way than the hypertrophic celebration of fascist-driven sculpture. Moreover, the biblical iconography chosen by Manzù does not adhere to the historical tradition of public and civil allegories associated with this subject.
This essay aims to investigate the reasons for such a singular depiction. To achieve this, I intend to propose an interpretation of these sculptures as an arena in which public and private issues are intertwined: on the one hand, the cultural debate of a silently anti-fascist group of intellectuals gathered around the Milanese magazine «Corrente»; on the other, the artist’s biography during these three years, as crucial on the artistic side as dramatic on the personal one.
An unprecedented archival research sheds light on the artist’s extensive network of friends, colleagues, gallerists, intellectuals, and collectors, that leads to a new understanding not only of the two sculptures at issue, but also of the cultural and material conditions of the sculptural profession in Italy at the dawn of the Second World War, when Fascism was at the height of its cultural and political power.

Mariantonietta Picone Petrusa, former Full Professor of Contemporary Art History at the Federico II University of Naples, she carried out research on the art of southern Italy in the 19th and 20th centuries, on Universal Expositions, on the birth of photography and its relations with other arts, on the history of posters and on some aspects of the first and second avant-gardes. She has personally curated various exhibitions and has contributed to important institutional exhibitions. She has collaborated with several journals, has been part of the scientific committee of «Aura» and «Confronto» and is a member of the scientific editorial staff of «Napoli Nobilissima» and of «Studi di Scultura». She founded and directed the journal «ON.OttoNovecento» from 1996 to 2000. Her entries are present in several dictionaries (Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Garzanti, Utet, Macmillan) and recently she coordinated the contributions relating to European art from 1900 to 1945 for the new Encyclopedia Treccani of Contemporary Art.

picone.mari@virgilio.it

Sculpture and Photography. Interferences of Codes

The discovery of photography influenced painters and sculptors, leading to an interfence of codes. To this end, it was necessary to intertwine theoretical analyses (from Wölfflin to Benjamin, Malraux, and Pierce) and the poetics of several sculptors. Rodin, Rosso, and Brâncuși began to assimilate photography into their production in the early twentieth century, but it was with Duchamp first and with the Neo-Avant-garde and Postmodern movements (Pop, Conceptual art, Minimal art, Land art, and even performance and Digital art) that the photographic medium, placed on a par with other art forms, invaded the entire creative sphere. An era of exchanges and combinations began, culminating in the further turning point in the 1980s and 1990s, when photography reclaimed its right to ‘fiction’. On a theoretical level, the revival of Pierce’s theories favored an indexical interpretation of photography. This is true for analytical conceptualism, much less so for process art, narrative art, or digital art. In recent research, photography, with its hybrid nature, alongside its role as an ‘index’ – that is a trace of reality – has also sometimes assumed the characteristics of an ‘icon’ and even a ‘symbol’.

Valentina Raimondo is a museum curator at the University of Bergamo, where she also serves as coordinator of the Fondo Ada e Mario De Micheli. As an art historian, her research focuses on twentieth-century Italian art, with a particular emphasis on sculpture. She has published extensively on the work of Giacomo Manzù, Nino Franchina, Floriano Bodini, and Attilio Nani, to whom she has dedicated scholarly essays and monographic studies.

valentina.raimondo@unibg.it

Floriano Bodini and His Sculpture in the Photographic Narrative of Pepi Merisio

In 1964, the monograph on Floriano Bodini published in the “Quaderni di Imago” marked the beginning of the sculptor’s encounter with photographer Pepi Merisio, initiating a long and fruitful interdisciplinary dialogue. Their collaboration ranges from the documentation of sculptural work to portraiture, and extends to the representation of the creative space, understood as both a physical and mental dimension of art. Merisio photographed Bodini at work in his studios and at the Fonderia Artistica Battaglia in Milan, producing images that, through calibrated use of light and spatial composition, emphasize plasticity, volume, and detail. More than documentation, these photographs become an integral part of the narrative of the creative process. For his part, Bodini regarded photography as an essential analytical tool, valuable for psychological insight and for refining the rendering of his sculptural portraits. This article examines their collaboration from the 1960s to the early 2000s, highlighting the documentary and interpretative role of photography in contemporary sculpture.

Federica Stevanin (PhD) is Associate Professor in the Department of Cultural Heritage at the University of Padua (Italy), where she teaches History of Contemporary Art. She is interested in experimental tendencies, performance art, and site-specific art, she has published essays and volumes ranging from 1960s and 1970s art to present-day tendencies and has contributed to research projects and exhibitions. Among her publications are the books Alighiero e Boetti: ricami e tappeti (2015), and Fotografia, film e video nella Land Art (2017).

federica.stevanin@unipd.it

«Sculpture in the Expanded Field» and Photography: The Case of Michael Heizer

Within the artistic practices indicated by Rosalind Krauss with the expression «sculpture in the expanded field», Land Art has always had a problematic relationship with photography. One of the most interesting cases is that of the American artist Michael Heizer (1944), who, although he initially started from a documentary use of photography, between the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s was engaged in research aimed to demonstrate the impossibility for photography to represent the complexity of his sculptural practice. Both his site-specific interventions and the conceptual photographic works that he creates starting from these artworks are conceived by him as a perceptive test bed for the observer, who is forced to actively question what he is actually seeing and to acknowledge the non-overlapability between work and photography.

Ludovica Scalzo graduated in Art History in 2018 from the University of Calabria, under the supervision of Professor Giovanna Capitelli, with a thesis on the artistic presences in cosmopolitan Rome during the Restoration period. Her research, conducted in Paris and supervised by Professor Maria Pia Donato (École Normale Supérieure), was part of the project Lettres d’artistes. Pour une nouvelle histoire transnationale de l’art, XVIIIe–XIXe siècles. In 2021, she earned a postgraduate diploma in Historical and Artistic Heritage from the University of Milan, where she focused on the personal archive of the art historian Stefania Stefani, working with Professor Giovanni Agosti. She obtained her PhD from Roma Tre University with a dissertation on museums in Rome during the Restoration period (1814-1848), supervised by Professor Capitelli, with Professor Carla Mazzarelli as co-supervisor. In spring 2022, she took part in a research residency at the University of Italian Switzerland, contributing to the launch of the project Visibility Reclaimed. Experiencing Rome’s First Public Museums (1733-1870). She is currently an adjunct professor at USAC University in Viterbo and a member of the scientific committee of the international Master’s program Culture del Patrimonio at Roma Tre University.

ludovica.scalzo@uniroma3.it

Giacomo Caneva and the first photographic testimonies of the Vatican and Capitoline Sculptures: A Commission by Adolphe Thiers?

This essay investigates one of the earliest photographic campaigns ever carried out inside the Vatican and Capitoline Museums, attributed to Giacomo Caneva (1813-1865) and, according to a contemporary source, commissioned by the French statesman Adolphe Thiers (1797-1877). Starting from information reported by Napoleone Pietrucci in his Biografia degli artisti padovani (1858), the article reconstructs the historical context and the conditions that may have made such an undertaking possible, through the examination of materials preserved in French and Roman archives. The study aims to verify the authenticity of a never-confirmed account by tracing the network of relationships linking the two figures and, at the same time, to highlight the connection between early photography and museum institutions, with particular attention to nineteenth-century photographic reproductions of sculptural masterpieces from the collections of Rome.

Francesco Zagnoni graduated in Visual Arts in 2020 under the supervision of Professor Andrea Bacchi at the University of Bologna, with a thesis on the seventeenth-century Provençal sculptor Christophe Veyrier. He then continued his studies at the Scuola di specializzazione in Artistic Heritage of the University of Bologna, graduating in 2022. Currently, he is a PhD candidate in Visual, Perfoming and Media Arts at the same institution, where he is completing a research project on the work of the nineteenth-century Italian sculptor Lorenzo Bartolini. On this subject, he has already published two articles in «Bollettino d’arte». In recent years he has collaborated with the Musei Civici d’Arte Antica of Bologna, and in June 2025 he has been employed as an art historian at the Rocca Albornoz – Museo nazionale del Ducato di Spoleto. His research interests focus mainly on nineteenth-century sculpture, but also on Bolognese art of the Modern Age, with particular attention to the Apennine area.

francesco.zagnoni2@unibo.it

Lorenzo Bartolini and Daguerreotypy: New Documents and Some Clarifications

The early use of photography by Lorenzo Bartolini (1777-1850), one of the most prominent sculptors in Italy during the first half of the nineteenth century, has already been the subject of several studies, yet it still offers new avenues to research, especially thanks to the recent acquisition of the artist’s private archive by the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence. First of all, this essay seeks to provide new evidence that Bartolini was familiar with daguerreotypy from the earliest years following its invention. Furthermore, an examination of the correspondence between the sculptor and his Genoese pupil Santo Varni makes it possible to explore how these artists benefitted from the new technique, which proved particularly effective for exchanging images of sculptures. Finally, the study revisits and evaluates the hypothesis advanced by Andrea Greco regarding Bartolini’s use of daguerreotypes in the creation of his portrait busts.

Matteo Salomone graduated in Art History from the University of Bologna in 2021, with a thesis on the sculptural decoration of the Basilica of Santa Maria Immacolata (1856-1904) in Genoa. During his PhD in Art History at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, he served as chercheur accueilli at the Musée d’Orsay and as a visiting fellow at the The Institute of the History and Theory of Art and Architecture (ISA) of the Mendrisio Academy of Architecture. He is currently adjunct professor at the University of Genoa, focusing his research on Italian sculpture from the late 18th to the early 20th century.

matteo.salomone01@gmail.com

Sculpture and Photography in Genoa in the late Nineteenth Century: the circulation

This essay, starting from an analysis of the early use of photography by Santo Varni and some of his important students (such as Giulio Monteverde) aims to provide a preliminary account of the relationship between photography and sculpture in Genoa in the late nineteenth century, focusing particularly on the photographic captures of the two most important construction sites of the time: the Christopher Columbus Monument in Piazza Acquaverde and, above all, the Monumental Cemetery of Staglieno. Thanks to the study of documents and contemporary publications, it is possible to reconstruct an initial but significant itinerary of the international spread of Genoese sculpture, precisely through photo albums, cartes-de-visite, stereoscopies, and illustrated guides. These photographs, moreover, entered prestigious collections, such as that of the Emperor of Brazil, Pedro II. This research, therefore, attempts to highlight how photography contributed to the commissioning of public works inspired by the Christopher Columbus Monument from Genoese artists, as well as numerous funerary monuments, especially in South America.

Filippo Yahia Masri studied at the University of Turin, where he graduated with a thesis entitled The multiple of art: birth and fortune in Italy, 1964-1975. He then completed a cycle of studies at the School of Specialization in Historical-Artistic Heritage at the University of Genoa, where he is currently a PhD student in Digital Humanities. His research project focuses on the main historical and artistic dynamics of Turin in the 1980s.

filippoyahia.masri@edu.unige.it

The Staglieno Cemetery in the photographs of the Noack Studio: an Initial Analysis of the production between 1863 and 1912

This paper analyses the production of Studio Noack between 1863 and 1912, focusing on Staglieno Cemetery. The context in which this campaign developed is reconstructed, delving into the role and history of photography in Genoa during the period under study. Three figures were central to the development of the studio: Alfred Noack, Ernesto Noack and Carlo Paganini. The photographers’ work is retraced with a focus on photographs of the necropolis. This study stands as the first reference for the attribution of these photographs, whose authorship presents several problems. To resolve these issues, thanks to research conducted at the Centro DocSAI’s Photographic Archive in Genoa, a Table has been created – included in the Appendix – which provides various useful information for future studies on photography in Staglieno.

Federica Vermot wrote a thesis on reproduction through casts and photography in the work of Swiss sculptor Vincenzo Vela at the University of Lausanne (De plâtre et d’argent. Moulage et photographie chez le sculpteur Vincenzo Vela [1820-1891], 2025). As such, she is a specialist in nineteenth-century sculpture, reproduction techniques and artistic exchanges between Swiss, Italy and France. For her PhD, she received a mobility grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) in 2021-2022 (Università di Milano ‘Statale’ and Université Paris Nanterre). She is now a Senior Researcher for the SNSF project La fabrique de la sculpture: processus créatifs des sculpteurs français aux XVI^e et XVII^e siècles held at the University of Lausanne.

federica.vermot@unil.ch

Moving Images. Vincenzo Vela and the circulation of  Sculpture Through photography

In the nineteenth century, the transformation of sculptures into photographic image facilitated its widespread circulation, compensating for the loss of dimensionality with enhanced mobility. The Swiss sculptor Vincenzo Vela (1820-1890) recognized this potential and gathered a significant photographic library that allows us to discuss how and why contemporary sculptures moved and circulated via photography. Through exchanges with patrons, colleagues, and friends, photographs were used as a medium for communication and validation. Additionally, these images gradually found their way into illustrated publications, increasing the visibility of the sculptural works. Finally, they could even serve political purposes, as happened with the promotion of some of Vela’s productions through their photographic reproduction. By discussing these various cases, this paper aims to expose the instrumentalization of photography’s mobility in contemporary sculpture during the years that immediately followed the discovery of the new medium.

Monica Vinardi, art historian, with a PhD from the University of Florence (thesis on Vittore Grubicy De Dragon through his writings and letters, supervisor by Maria Grazia Messina), she devotes most of her research to Italian art between the 19th and 20th centuries. She has extensive experience in cataloging, including historical photographic materials: she catalogued the photographic collection of Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo, preserved at the Museums of Volpedo; in 2020, in collaboration with the Museo dell’Ottocento in Ferrara, she won the Mibac ‘Strategia Fotografia’ competition for the study and enhancement of the photographic collection of the Società per l’arte di Gaetano Previati. She is currently an art historian at the Superintendence of Archaeology, Fine Arts, and Landscape for Liguria.

monica.vinardi@cultura.gov.it

Photographs from the Giovanni Prini Archive

This contribution aims to analyse a selection of period photographs from the studio of sculptor Giovanni Prini (Genoa, 1877 – Rome, 1958), now preserved at the Giovanni Prini Archive in Rome.  Prini, who soon became close to Giacomo Balla after moving to Rome in the early 20th century, adopted photography as a means of observing and monitoring his sculptural creations during the various stages of production, photographing his dimensional works. Even in the 1920s, the photographs dedicated to different poses of the Portrait of Sara Gasco presented at the Amatori e Cultori exhibition in 1923 document the study of different lighting effects for the plastic and volumetric emphasis of the figure, as well as for the enhancement of its more superficial ripples subjects under different lighting conditions and often seeking out particular settings for them, animated by the presence of human figures. From his early Symbolist works to sculptures more influenced by Rodin’s modeling, such as the frieze for the pronaos of Bazzani’s GNAM (Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna) building in 1911, photographed while still in progress, with the clay still wet, the images reveal the artist’s constant monitoring of the creative process of his three-dimensional works. Even in the 1920s, the photographs dedicated to different poses of the Portrait of Sara Gasco presented at the Amatori e Cultori exhibition in 1923 document the study of different lighting effects for the plastic and volumetric emphasis of the figure, as well as for the enhancement of its more superficial ripples.

Serenella Todesco is a PhD student in Art History at the University of Udine. Her research focuses on the relationship between sculpture and dance from the late nineteenth Century to the 1960s. She graduated with honors from the same university with a thesis on the reception of Alberto Giacometti’s work in Italy. Concurrently, she earned the highest marks at the Scuola Superiore Universitaria di Toppo Wassermann, an esteemed institution affiliated with the University of Udine. During her studies, conducted research and collaborated with specialised institutions, including the Alberto Giacometti Foundation in Paris and the Nivola Museum in Orani.

todesco.serenella@spes.uniud.it

The early career of Dino Basaldella: exploring the atelier through the University of Udine’s Photographic Archive

The first years of the Basaldella brothers’ activity remain relatively unexplored, but their shared creative vision at the outset of their careers appears to have been reflected in their first atelier, as evidenced by their daily engagement with photography. The series of sixty-six glass photographic plates donated to the University of Udine in 2017 is crucial to understanding this early period. These plates, captured by Dino at the Basaldella atelier in Udine, showcase works created between 1927 and the early 1940s. The photographic process was meticulous, with specific arrangements made within the studio to photograph sculptures from various angles and under different lighting conditions. This method allowed for a comprehensive exploration of materials and stylistic evolution, ranging from the archaic charm of their early figures to the neo-expressionist tendencies of the late 1930s.

Stefano Gallo was Associate Professor of Contemporary Art History at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, within the Department of Studi letterari, filosofici e di storia dell’arte. For many years he was for many years a lecturer in Contemporary Art History with Suor Orsola Benincasa University of Naples. After initially researching the fields of Medieval art history and contemporary art criticism, he interest to the artistic production between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His work focused  particularly on Neapolitan Realism, Roman Futurism, and French and German artistic culture, especially in relation to the interplay between pictorial languages and art theory, such as Jules Laforgue with Impressionism and Konrad Fiedler with Hans von Marées. He explored the connection between aspects of the early twentieth-century artistic avant-garde and contemporary developments in industrial design. His research also addressed the artistic milieu in Rome engaged, from the 1950s onwards, in the Post-Informal new Abstract art movement. He closely followed developments within Neapolitan art scene.

stefanogallo2012@gmail.com

Sculpture in the Art of  Tullia Matania

This study investigates the role that sculpture played in shaping the artistic language of the Neapolitan artist Tullia Matania (1925–2025). As both painter and sculptor, while deeply rooted in the Classical-Renaissance figurative tradition, still she engaged in a heartfelt relationship with the realistic aspects of her subjects.
Her long career was marked by a neverending attention to original technical solutions, each adding to the specific expressive aims pursued in her research. Her movement between painting and sculpture constitutes an essential component of her artistic identity. Critics have yet to situate her within Neapolitan Neorealism or within any of the other major artistic currents of the twentieth century.
Although widely acknowledged for her ability to give visual form to ethical issues, particularly through cycles of works addressing the violence suffered by entire populations from the second half of the twentieth century to the present, the trajectory developed by the language of her work still appears to call for a critical perspective capable of situating its distinctive features within the broader history of art. It is within this framework that the present research is situated.

Claudia Massi is an architect and researcher. She graduated with honors and with a recommendation for publication from the University of Florence, with a thesis on the work of Mimar Sinan. She is an expert in the fields of restoration and 20th-century architectural history, she has directed her scientific activity toward the enhancement of the Tuscan landscape, with a specific focus on the spa town systems. She is Contract Professor and research fellow at the Department of Architecture in Florence, and the author of extensive scholarly work, including monographs on Pietro Porcinai and the architecture of Montecatini Terme, the latter translated into both English and Russian. Her international profile is further established by her collaboration with UNESCO, for which she managed the dossiers for the Medici Villas and oversaw the entire transnational nomination process for Montecatini Terme as a World Heritage Site. A founding member of  CeDaCoT (Center for Documentation of Contemporary Architecture in Tuscany), she has curated international exhibitions and conferences dedicated to the sculptor Libero Andreotti, editing the related scientific publications.

Claudio Pizzorusso is a former Full Professor of Contemporary Art History at the University of Naples Federico II. He has also taught at the Universities of Urbino, Florence, and Siena for Foreigners. His fields of research are Painting and Sculpture in Italy (1500-1700), painting and sculpture in France and Italy (1850-1950). He has Curator and Executive or Advisory Committee member of many exhibitions. In 2011 he won the Salimbeni Prize for Art Criticism. He is member of the INASA (National Institute of Archaeology and Art History) and the director of the academic journal «Rivista di Letterature moderne e comparate e Storia delle arti».

claudiamassi69@gmail.com
claudio.pizzorusso.unina@gmail.com

MUSEO LIBERO ANDREOTTI. Identity, functions and prospects of a museum in transformation

The Libero Andreotti Museum in Pescia stands today as an exemplary monographic institution, one that has successfully evolved from a repository of memory into a dynamic hub for research, education, and public engagement.
Housed within the 14th-century Palazzo del Podestà, the museum preserves the artistic legacy of Libero Andreotti through a collection of 250 plaster casts, 1,000 drawings, and approximately 5,000 archival documents, providing a cohesive testament to Italian sculpture between the 19th and 20th centuries. An analysis of the exhibition pathway – while maintaining the effective layout established in 1992 – reveals a progressive scientific growth, fostered by its integration into the Pistoia Museum System (SIMUP) and the steady expansion of its holdings through new donations and acquisitions.
In recent years, the institution has managed to combine the rigor of protection and conservation – viewed as an ethical responsibility toward fragile materials such as plaster and paper – with a modern cultural vision. Driven by digitalization efforts, the enhancement of educational programming, and an upcoming structural and museographic expansion project, the Libero Andreotti Museum is projecting itself into the future as an international point of reference for the study of early 20th-century sculpture, confirming its role as a civic and scientific landmark deeply rooted in the local territory.

Eike Schmidt is the Director of the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte in Naples, after previously leading the Uffizi Galleries in Florence from 2015 to 2023. Trained in Heidelberg, Bologna, and Florence, he is internationally recognized as a specialist in Renaissance and Baroque sculpture, with particular expertise in Medici collecting, ivory carving, and the history of sculpture in early modern Europe. Before assuming the leadership of major Italian museums, he held curatorial positions at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and served as Director of Sculpture and Works of Art at Sotheby’s, London. Since 2017 he has been Honorary Professor of Art History and Museology at the Humboldt-Universität in Berlin. He is the author of over 200 publications, including Collecting Sculpture in Early Modern Europe (2008), edited with Nicholas Penny; The Color of Life: Polychromy in Sculpture from Antiquity to the Present (2008), edited with Roberta Panzanelli and Kenneth Lapatin; Fruits of Desire: A Seventeenth-Century Carved Ivory Cup (2009); Beauty Bound and Power Unleashed: Jacobus Agnesius and the Quest for Expression in Baroque Sculpture (2011); Das Elfenbein der Medici (2012), his landmark study of Medici ivory sculpture; The Hours of Night and Day: A Rediscovered Cycle of Bronze Reliefs by Giovanni Casini and Pietro Cipriani (2014); I miei Uffizi (2022). He has also curated numerous exhibitions, including Diafane Passioni. Avori barocchi dalle corti europee (2013), co-curated with Maria Sframeli; Tesfaye Urgessa. Oltre (2018); Plasmato dal fuoco. La scultura in bronzo nella Firenze degli ultimi Medici (2019), co-curated with Sandro Bellesi and Riccardo Gennaioli; Antony Gormley. Essere (2019), co-curated with Max Seidel; Giuseppe Penone. Alberi in versi (2021); Lo sfregio. Bernini / Sagaria (2021), co-curated with Chiara Toti; Bertozzi & Casoni. Metamorfosi (2025), co-curated with Diego Galizzi; Sergio Vacchi a Napoli (2025); and most recently, Nicola Samorì. Classical Collapse (2025), co-curated with Demetrio Paparoni and Alberto Rocca.

eike.schmidt@cultura.gov.it

‘Golden Passion’: a small exhibition on an important discovery in Munich

This review examines the reunion of Georg Petel’s recently rediscovered gilt-bronze Crucifix with the two thieves preserved in Berlin, as presented in a focus exhibition at the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, stressing its importance both museologically and for the reconstruction of the sculptor’s œuvre. While acknowledging the rigor of the attributional analysis and the reconstruction of the group’s afterlife in Southern Germany, the text argues that the authors underestimate Rubens’s decisive model and fail to fully address workshop practice and the division of labor in seventeenth-century bronze production.