Scripta Maneant – förlag

Artemisia Gentileschi has been the subject of much attention in recent decades. Research dedicated to her has, however, often returned a stereotyped and reductive image of the artistic universe and personality of the painter. The professional figure of Gentileschi, who was able to move with great success in what we now call the art system, finally finds new dignity. Unpublished attributions from private collections are flanked by the painter’s masterpieces, reconstructing the framework of the international commissions that consecrated her as a protagonist of the European Baroque, in the most complete and up-to-date volume dedicated to the artist. The innovative charge of language and the exceptional nature of Artemisia’s iconographic choices reveal the documented interests and literary, scientific and musical frequentations that the painter skilfully cultivated in every city that recorded her passage.Text in English and Italian.

From the Palazzo Vecchio to the Forte Belvedere, through the Uffizi, the Vasari Corridor, the Pitti Palace, and the Boboli Gardens, Florence is honeycombed with a series of public art collections that is unparalleled in Europe for its size and for the variety and value of its holdings. Taken all together, the museums of Florence are one of the wonders of the world, for the spiritual values that they embody as much as for the works they contain.The painting collections in the state museums of Florence are unequalled for their quality, historical significance, and for the sheer number of works; never before have they been presented in a publication of such splendid technical quality. Thus the reader can trace the various phases and great moments of Florentine painting, including lesser known works of the seventeenth century; can appreciate the presence of masterpieces from other, perhaps unknown, schools; and can examine details different from the standard ones consecrated by tradition.Text in English and Italian.

According to Count Galeazzo Arconati, who gave other Leonardo manuscripts to the Ambrosiana Library in Milan, the drawings concerning nature, anatomy, and colour, have been “in the hands of the King of England before 1640.” The collection has been recorded as being in the possession of Queen Mary II, in 1690, a year after she and her husband, William III, ascended the throne as joint monarchs. The collection comprises all the known anatomical drawings by Leonardo. Three hundred images of the human body by the great artist, made between about 1485 and 1510–15, are showcased in this magnificent volume. Based on the artist's own anatomical dissections, they show his evolving understanding of physiology. The drawings demonstrate, as well, Leonardo's progress from technical mastery of his subject to consummate draftsmanship. The commentary on this astonishing body of work is by Professor Martin Kemp of Oxford University, a leading international authority of Leonardo da Vinci, who explains the uniqueness of the painter’s stroke and the refined figurative transposition. One of the most renowned Italian Anatomists, Professor Mario Rende of the University of Perugia, analyses the significance of these works from a medical-scientific angle, revealing the insights, the research methodology, and the experimental and analytical approach of the Genius of da Vinci. Moving between art and anatomy, between unsurpassed illustrative display and avant-garde Renaissance scientific research, the work thus provides an in-depth and comprehensive look at an indispensable aspect of the Great Master's story.Text in English and Italian.

The definitive photographic guide to discovering the beauty of Rome. A historical-archaeological introduction immerses the visitor in the Eternal City. The 15 itineraries explore the main riches of the historic centre of the Urbe, with its fountains, squares, churches, palaces, museums and parks, also include precious gems, far from the traditionally visited routes. Each itinerary features a map, a rich corpus of descriptive images, historical information, curiosities and tips for enjoying an authentic Roman stay.QR codes at the opening of chapters get to digital contents that enrich the experience of getting to know the Eternal City, from paper to digital.

An expert in Pompeian studies and a qualified tourist guide since 2005, Professor De Albentiis has been Professor of Style, History of Art and Costume at the Pietro Vannucci Academy of Fine Arts, which in 2003 awarded him the title of Honorary Academician. In addition to his academic activity, which has also seen him involved as a visiting professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bilbao, Thessaloniki, Pontevedra, Córdoba Oporto and Nanjing, De Albentiis also stands out for his activity as a militant critic of contemporary art and as a promoter of sensitivity towards art and history, through his collaboration with various cultural bodies and associations. In this volume, he reconstructs the history of the discovery and excavation of Pompeii, immersing the reader in every aspect of Pompeian civilisation. A journey to discover the main areas and spaces dedicated to public and private life in Pompeii before the terrible eruption of 79 AD, which fatally decreed both its destruction and its preservation. The magnificence of Pompeii's villas, temples and squares is brought to life in this volume, together with an exhaustive analysis of the religious, economic, social, residential and funerary life of its civilisation.Text in English and Italian.

Masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance are in churches and museums throughout Italy. This book follows Leonado da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo and others from place to place - Milan, Florence, the Vatican, Urbino and elsewhere - noting the great works as well as those found in less celebrated locations. Contents: Introduction; The Spring of the Renaissance; Leonardo in Florence: The Workshop of Verrocchio; Raphael: From the Onset in Urbino to the Early Masterpieces; Leonardo in Milan: the Sforza's Court; The Wonders of the Codex Atlanticus; The Cenacle, One of the Most Beautiful Paintings in the World; The Triumph of Raphael: the Room of the Segnatura and the First Roman Masterpieces; Raphael Towards the Room of Heliodorus; Michelangelo Painter; Raphael: from the Cartoons for the Sistine Chapel to the Room of the Fire in the Borgo; Raphael: Superintendent of Fine Arts; The Vatican Lodges; The Mystery of the First Caravaggio; Index of the Works and Places of Conservation.Text in English and Italian.

The beautifully illustrated pocket edition is an editorial tribute tothe history of the Comunale Theatre in Bologna, a city institution of international fame. With previously unpublished and richly detailed images and complementary texts by Professor Piero Mioli, this publication celebrates the theatre's great and unique story. Also included is a rich photographic array from the theatre's historical archives featuring posters, stage photos, sketches, drawings and figurine plates, which have been hidden from public view, until now.Text in English and Italian.

The beautifully illustrated volume is an editorial tribute to the history of the Comunale Theatre in Bologna, a city institution of international fame. With previously unpublished and richly detailed images and complementary texts by Professor Piero Mioli, this publication celebrates the theatre's great and unique story. Also included is a rich photographic array from the theatre's historical archives featuring posters, stage photos, sketches, drawings and figurine plates, which have been hidden from public view, until now.Text in English and Italian.

The iconic Dome of the Cathedral of Florence, the largest masonry vault in the world, was built by Filippo Brunelleschi between 1420 and 1436. More than 100 years later, between 1572 and 1579, the vault was decorated with frescos by the artists Giorgio Vasari and Federico Zuccari depicting the Last Judgment. Working with advanced imaging technology, total access, and Italy’s leading art photographer, this book presents in never-before-seen detail and completeness the entire pictorial cycle of the Dome. Contributions by noted art historians Marco Bussagli, Mina Gregori, and Timothy Verdon illuminate the art historical significance of this magnificent symbol of Florence and the Renaissance.Text in English and Italian.

The Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore is the only patriarchal basilica of the four in Rome to have retained its paleo-Christian structures. The Basilica dates back to 425 AD and in this elegant and triumphal photographic masterpiece accomplished at the height of today’s technology, we can admire in detail the grandeur of all its artistic details: the mosaics of the nave; the ceremonial arch dating to the pontificate of Pope Sixtus III (432-440 AD); those of the apse made at the behest of Pope Nicholas V (1288-1292); the Cosmatesque floor; the coffered ceiling designed by Giuliano da San Gallo; the Nativity scene by Arnolfo di Cambio; the High Altar by Ferdinando Fuga; the Borghese, Cesi, Sforza, and Sistine Chapels; and the Crucifix and St. Michael chapels by Luigi Valadier.The Basilica is Pope Francis' final resting place.Tradition has it that the Virgin Mary herself inspired the choice of the Esquiline Hill for the church’s construction. Appearing in a dream to both the Patrician John, the landowner of the Esquiline Hill, and Pope Liberius, she asked that a church be built in her honour on a site she would miraculously indicate.Text in English and Italian.

The sound of Maria Callas, artist and woman.Maria Callas was one of the most influential and renowned opera singers of the 20th century. Callas 100 recounts the diva’s unparalleled career and epoch-making moments through exclusive images and previously unpublished documents, such as her debut at La Scala in 1950, her 1958 Norma at the Rome Opera, her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1956, and her Lucia di Lammermoor at the Dallas Civic Opera in 1959.Intimate conversations with friends and collaborators, anecdotes and photographs from personal archives introduce the unprecedented journey into the life of the artist beyond the curtain, from her stay in Ischia with her friend Giovanna Lomazzi to her trip to Africa with the writer Dacia Maraini, from her lessons at the Julliard School in New York to the private lessons she gave to the Soprano Sylvia Sass in Paris.Text in English and Italian.

The Basilica of Saint Mary Major is the only patriarchal basilica of the four in Rome to have retained its paleo-Christian structures and is the resting place of Pope Francis. This elegant guide showcases ultra-high gigapixel photography of the Basilica's interior and traces its history from 425 AD and tradition has it that the Virgin Mary herself inspired the choice of the Esquiline Hill for the church's construction. Appearing in a dream to both the Patrician John, the landowner of the Esquiline Hill, and Pope Liberius, she asked that a church be built in her honour on a site she would miraculously indicate. This is the essential and most innovative guide to this important pilgrimage and tourist site in Rome. Text in English and Italian.

Rising near the baths of Diocletian, where Imperial Rome once proclaimed its power, the Teatro dell'Opera in Rome stands as a different but no less enduring monument to Italian genius. Inaugurated in 1880 as the Teatro Costanzi, it was born at a pivotal hour - when a newly unified Italy sought not only political coherence but a shared cultural soul. Within its crimson and golden interiors, that soul found one of its most resounding expressions. Here Puccini's Tosca premiered in 1900, at a time when the theatre became both witness and protagonist of modernity - surviving war, regime, and reinvention - while safeguarding a repertoire that binds Italy to the wider world. To enter its auditorium is to step into a continuum: ancient stone outside, velvet and light within, and above all the breath of singers transforming silence into shared memory. This is a stunning volume, enriched by glorious photography, that honours and uplifts one of the most important opera houses in the world.Text in English and Italian.

Investigations by Sara Penco stem from the insightful finding of the absence of a key figure in the Sistine Chapel’s Last Judgement fresco. Prior to this illuminating research, Mary Magdalene was not unequivocally identified within Michelangelo’s masterpiece. Father Pfeiffer, with whom Penco establishes an inescapable dialectic, had already hypothesised the presence of Mary Magdalene in the fresco, but it is the scholar, for the first time in these pages, who convincingly justifies her identification. Mary Magdalene is closely connected to the salient episodes in the life of Jesus. The author rightly wonders, therefore, how it is possible that a figure so central to the biblical narrative and the Christian imagination could have been excluded from the depiction of the Parousia. This observation gives rise to an accurate reflection on the iconography of the saint and the Judgement, in relation to the sacred texts and in relation to Michelangelo’s poetics and production. Sara Penco traces Mary Magdalene in the tangle of figures on the wall behind the altar of the Sistine Chapel, contributing to characterise the fresco - one of the best known and most appreciated works in the world - with an unprecedented theological message.Text in English and Italian.

This book offers a privileged journey through the geography and history of Italian and international figurative culture kept at the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, with works spanning a chronological period from the 13th to the 20th centuries. The Pinacoteca, born within the Enlightenment culture as a testimony to the progress of the human spirit, remains today a dynamic and lively instrument of civilisation. The book reconstructs the patronage and provenance of the paintings and the way in which they were received; it specifies their technical data, as well as introducing comments and in-depth studies.In addition, the rich illustrative apparatus leads to continuous comparisons and new explorations.

The Francis Bacon Collection is the result of an extraordinarily lengthy discovery and authentication process of previously unpublished works by Francis Bacon. This stunning volume includes the nearly 700 drawings, pastels, and collages in possession of Italian journalist Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino. All the works have been photographed in ultra-high gigapixel, captured exclusively for the book. Commentaries and essays especially written for this edition are by noted art historians Edward Lucie-Smith and Fernando Casto Florez, together with an authentication report by Ambra Draghetti, the graphological consultant to the Court of Bologna for the authentication process. This elegantly produced edition presents new scholarship by Professor Umberto Guarini, who defended the legal authentication of the works at the Court of Bologna; Dino Cura, the President of The Francis Bacon Collection; and by Professor Maurizio Saracini, who pioneered the use of multi-spectrum diagnostic imaging and applied his technique to the drawings providing fascinating new details for the first time.Text in English and Italian.

A photographic narrative that crosses the world's main cities to witness the shared intentions and feelings that bind the single Pride events in one big wave that envelops and crosses all countries, exalting the uniqueness and variegated compositions of identities and modes. A snapshot of global LGBTQIA+ pride, with a focus on Pride parades marking momentous anniversaries, including New York Pride in 2019, 50 years after the events of Stonewall, and London Pride in 2020, 50 years after the birth of the Gay Liberation Front.The book also bears witness to the spread of the Wave in the countries of Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Australia, which since the end of the 1990s, with particular regard to the last decade, has been gaining spaces for listening and rights.The Pride project recounts, celebrates and enhances LGBTQIA+ pride around the world, through the faces and claims of the protagonists of a struggle that involves us all: that for a fair and inclusive world, in which no person should feel excluded or discriminated against for their way of being, living and loving.Text in English and Italian.

This is a comprehensive essential tool to understanding and appreciating the Dome of Florence in its entirety. It is published as the result of several months of photographing all the famous structures - the interior of the Cathedral, Brunelleschi's dome, the Baptistery - in ultra-high gigapixel photographic capture, including the frescoes inside the dome that no one but conservators have seen in centuries. More than an architectural icon for the millions of visitors to Florence every year, Santa Maria del Fiore represents the moment Europe discovered its new identity—one that valorised human ingenuity, revived classical ideals, and re-imagined the relationship between beauty, mathematics, and the divine. This publication captures that pivotal transition with unprecedented fidelity. Brunelleschi's dome and its frescoes, the Baptistery, and the inner cathedral are showcased in fine detail.Text in English and Italian.

Sicily is famous for the spectacular mosaics found in its magnificent palaces, chapels and cathedrals. Commissioned during the twelfth century by Sicily's Norman rulers and largely the work of Greek-speaking mosaicists brought to Sicily from Constantinople, these mosaics are among the most beautiful examples of Byzantine art in existence. A brief historical introduction about Byzantine, Arab and Norman domination and the spread of Byzantine art in Sicily is followed by three chapters dedicated to the greatest examples of Byzantine influence in Palermo, Cefalù and Monreale. With more than 175 colour photographs, this extensively illustrated book provides a fascinating look at these mosaics. There are many close-ups, along with breathtaking views of interior spaces. Text in English and Italian.

The images in this volume are the result of the photo shoot carried out in the Sistine Chapel between December 2015 and January 2016. New technologies have made it possible to achieve spectacular results, ensuring a more faithful and accurate reproduction of the Sistine masterpieces. The use of innovative Gigapixel technology has allowed achievements in life-size reproductions of the frescoes and an until now unpublished reading of the entire decoration of the Sistine, restoring its clarity and original colour.Text in English and Italian.

This volume represents an important tool for getting to know every aspect of Leonardo da Vinci's work: his pictorial technique, his scientific and technological investigation, his study on anatomy, his Codices, and every suggestion produced by his genius. All works and paintings are accompanied by descriptive and technical sheets, and ample space has been given to images and details, to the updated report on his most controversial works, to those of recent critical acceptance, and to the masterpieces that have animated the international debate such as The Encarnate Angel, the Salvator Mundi, and La Bella Principessa (Portrait of Bianca Sforza). The narrative captions reveal the most curious aspects of the history of each painting. Thanks to the direct contribution of collectors and museums the photographic reproductions of paintings and works reflect the last restorations. Text in English and French.

The Vatican Museums is one of the most important museum complexes in the world, housing incredible masterpieces from the Egyptian Age to the late Renaissance. The Vatican Museums hold a treasure trove of art and history, as well as an inestimable patrimony of our culture and our civilisation. This volume focuses on the paintings to be found in the collection - including The Sistine Chapel. Text in English and Italian.

The ancient city of Petra, in what is now southwest Jordan, has long been a pilgrimage for adventurous travellers. Built over 2,000 years ago, the Rose City (it is famously carved from red sandstone) holds a unique place in the world of archeological wonders. This beautifully photographed book, a revised and expanded edition, is for tourists and armchair travellers alike. With an updated text and over 350 photographs, maps, drawings, and plans, the author discusses every aspect of Petra, illuminating both the history and splendour of this astonishing site.

This book celebrates the extraordinary talent of Raphael, 500 years after his death.This is the story of an unequalled master whose figure has surpassed that of other leading figures of the Renaissance. His talent grew with astonishing rapidity, starting with the years of training at the workshop of his father Giovanni Santi: in 1500, at only 17 years old, he was already defined 'magister'.The author leads us into the folds of the extraordinary story of Raphael, studded with masterpieces that have become cornerstones in the history of art, and helps us to understand his timeless talent through new comparisons and explanations. The deep knowledge and the profound passion of the author make reading the book exciting and unforgettable.

This beautiful book in the "500" series celebrates the extraordinary talent of Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, arguably the most renowned artist of the Italian Renaissance. 500 years ago, he was 46 years old. He had already completed the Statue of David, the Doni Tondo, the Vatican Pietà, and the Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He would later paint the Last Judgement, the frescoes of the Pauline Chapel, and complete the Tomb of Julius II.This book celebrates his magisterial accomplishments throughout his lifetime, and includes his less celebrated works, architectural projects, lost works, and attributions.Text in English and Italian.

From a private collection in Italy, these previously unpublished works by Francis Bacon are presented here in thematic sections, each of which is preceded by a short introductory text. Nearly 700 drawings, pastels, and collages were gifted by Bacon over the course of many years to his close friend, Italian journalist Cristiano Lovatelli Ravarino. His commentary is included here, along with texts by noted art historians Edward Lucie-Smith and Fernando Castro Flórez, and an authentication report from Ambra Draghetti, graphological consultant to the Court of Bologna. The works were photographed expressly for this publication.Text in English and Italian.

Alessandra Bigi Iotti and Giulio Zavatta are noted art historians, authors, and professors who have organised exhibitions, events, and conferences in Italy and abroad. In this book, they take the reader on a journey through art galleries, museums, and places of worship, looking for celebrated as well as forgotten masterpieces of Mannerism – the most controversial style of the Renaissance period. Mannerism emerged in the later years of the High Italian Renaissance and continued into the early 17th century. Noted artists who worked in this style include Pontormo, Rosso Fiorentino, Parmigianino, and Giulio Romano. This book offers insight into this movement in the context of its time and brings to light forgotten works that represent an important part of Italian art history.Text in English and Italian.