The Hanbury Botanical Gardens. When nature becomes romantic beauty

Interview by Luca Violo with Lady Carolyn Hanbury

Quakers believe that a garden should respect a divine order in which science, beauty and religion interact. I find that this is still the case today, and it is to the credit of the University that it has not turned it into a park or tried to make money out of it, but rather left it as close to nature as possible, so that it maintains a spirit of stillness and timelessness.

Reunited. Piero della Francesca and the Augustinian Polyptych at the Poldi Pezzoli

Interview by Luca Violo with Alessandra Quarto, Director of the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan
Piero della Francesca’s polyptych for the high altar of the old Augustinian church in Borgo Sansepolcro, completed in 1469 and probably dismantled in the mid-16th century, has never regained its narrative unity. Many of the panels that made up the different sections of the polyptych are still missing, or perhaps lost forever, including the central panel and a large part of the predella.

Paola Mattioli. To see beyond

by Luca Violo
Paola Mattioli’s photography sees reality in brief imaginative epiphanies, where representation is a literary note, the sedimentation of an idea, a memory, a vision that becomes verse for images. In the portrait, the instrument of sight tells “a story, a tale, a responsibility, an attitude, a question, a partiality, a subtle distance, a text” (Paola Mattioli, L’infinito nel volto dell’altro, Mimesis, Milan 2023, p. 5).

Mendini. Emotional and romantic

Interview to Alessandro Mendini
by Luca Violo
During the hot summer of 2011, stepping into the Atelier Mendini was like being ushered into the workshop of a happy alchemist who, together with his beloved boys, enjoys reconstructing the forms of the imagination in the spirit of the Renaissance workshop, where the sum of skills created the excellence of the manufactured article. Alessandro Mendini is a source of ideas and his gaze is always projected into the future.

Being Gian Paolo Barbieri

Interview by Luca Violo with Gian Paolo Barbieri
Photography is a magic moment. It is the memory of the past. It is an incredible cultural re-visitation that is difficult to specify since it is immediate and wholly visual. Also, if we look back into pre-history and cave drawings we see how Man found in the form of an image his first way to tell a story.

Foreigners everywhere. Adriano Pedrosa presents the 60th Venice Biennale Arte

The 60th International Art Exhibition, titled Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere, will open to the public from Saturday April 20 to Sunday November 24, 2024, at the Giardini and the Arsenale; it will be curated by Adriano Pedrosa and organised by La Biennale di Venezia. The pre-opening will take place on April 17, 18 and 19; the awards ceremony and inauguration will be held on 20 April 2024.

A very Florentine adventure: or maybe not

by Luca Melegati, head of the Ceramics and Glass Department and Director of Milan
TThe birth of the association of the Amici di Doccia (Friends of Doccia), is due, but this is well known, to John Winter’s (1944 – 2014) determination, a personality, I believe, among the most interesting in the field of art commerce and, more generally, of the connoisseurship of the Short Century.

Pagani. The emotion of a dream

Interview by Luca Violo with Horacio Pagani, Founder & Chief Designer Pagani Automobili
Designing dream cars is both emotional and a great responsibility for us. We have to make sure that our creations ignite passion. We put love and dedication into our work, we use our skills that come from years of study and application.

Classic & Sports Cars. Freedom and beauty in movement

by Piero Evangelisti
According to sociologists and economists, the car ranks second, after our home, in the list of the most important things for a person and not so much as a means of transport – which remains fundamental for our freedom of movement – but, above all, for the emotions it convey(…)

El Greco. Venetian, universal and contemporary

byi Vittorio Sgarbi
El Greco there is a unique ability to overcome the barrier of time, any artist is in his canvases, even Pontormo, even Parmigianino, even the mannerists he felt like no other. El Greco lives as if time were not upon him (…)