Marsilio Editori – serie

Tour the city of Venice through the panoramic paintings of one of its most celebrated chroniclersThe lagoon city of Venice was home to some of the greatest painters of the Italian Renaissance. Among them was Vittore Carpaccio (c. 1465–1525), whose body of work largely remains to this day in the city in which he lived and died. Influenced by Early Netherlandish art and resistant to Humanist trends, Carpaccio is today known for having developed a style that set him apart from his peers. He worked primarily under the patronage of various scuole, or confraternities, to illustrate Christian anecdotes. Replete with illustrative detail and an earthy color palette, Carpaccio’s paintings are uniquely emotive in their depictions of saintly miracles.This new publication invites readers from around the world to tour Venice through Carpaccio’s masterpieces and discover the artist who was exceptionally adept at fusing the real Venice and the myth of Venice into a single vision. Carpaccio in Venice: A Guide presents all of the artist’s works conserved in the city, providing updated scholarship for both the paintings and their original locations in light of recent restoration efforts. Sites include the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, the Doge’s Palace, the Museo Correr, the Gallerie dell’Accademia, along with many other locations.

Damien Hirst enters into creative conversation with the many masterpieces of the Galleria BorgheseIn an extraordinary cultural undertaking, British artist Damien Hirst (born 1965) has launched an intense and unfiltered interaction with the works of Caravaggio, Raphael, Titian, Bernini, Canova and others in Italy’s Galleria Borghese. An unparalleled and controversial celebrity of the contemporary art world, Hirst’s work is perfectly suited to be displayed in relation to the colors and materials found in the Galleria Borghese. His sculptures, made of fine materials such as bronze, Carrara marble or seductive malachite, have been put on display in rooms of the museum that house masterpieces of the modern era such as the statuary groups of Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Antonio Canova’s Paolina Borghese. The resulting effect is one of surprising harmony: the Five Grecian Nudes appear natural next to Canova’s sculpture and the primitive appearance of the Lion Women of Asit Mayor is in perfect chromatic accord with the floors of the Galleria. Hirst’s new series of Colour Space paintings offers the same sense of continuity as the flow of the works hanging in the museum’s picture gallery. This comprehensive vision of the past and the present is fostered by the proximity of antique painting and contemporary painting, without frames to separate them, and without elements of signage to interrupt this immersion.

Origins and future of national and international artisanal excellence. What is craftsmanship? How do you determine excellence? The answers lie in identifying and carefully analyzing the constitutive elements of fine craftsmanship to arrive at a definition of excellence that is as objective as possible. Only then can we measure the true value of the finest craftsmanship, and celebrate the outstanding work of the artisans behind it. This publication represents a significant step forward in devising a structured methodological approach to assessing excellence in the artistic crafts. The proposed assessment matrix not only serves as a new tool to aid our understanding and assessment of excellence, but also offers invaluable support to those who aspire to achieve that excellence.