The Scuola Grande di San Rocco, considered the Sistine Chapel of Venice, houses the most acclaimed works of the city’s greatest painter, Jacopo Tintoretto, as well as the masterpiece of Italian carving, the magnificent wooden choir-stalls by Francesco Pianta. Text in Italian. Mirabilia Italiæ is a unique series. It owes its existence to an innovative and ambitious project: an atlas of the great monuments of Italy that will display them in all their details, from the best known to the least. This series represents a completely new way of documenting art. Mirabilia Italiæ provides a guided tour of each monument, fully and accurately explained. Each atlas contains hundreds of color photographs, arranged in a precise topographical sequence and accompanied by diagrams showing the exact location of each detail. The atlas is complemented by a volume of texts edited by the premier scholars in the field, consisting of critical essays and descriptive notes. Essays examine the monument from the art-historical point of view, and record the alterations it has undergone over time. Descriptive notes analyze the content and significance of the images. Extensive cross-references link the essays and notes to the images, facilitating consultation of the work. The General Editor of Mirabilia Italiæ is Salvatore Settis, Director of the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. Firm sale only.
Text in Italian.
Color photographs of Italian provincial towns and landscapes taken at the beginning of the 1980s that were included in Viaggio in Italy, curated by Luigi Ghirri, in 1984. It presents a completely new picture of the ‘Bel Paese’ beyond any folkloristic clichés.
Text in English and Italian.
Ceramics designed by Gio Ponti for Italian firm Richard-Ginori are well known to collectors and design scholars around the world. The originality of Ponti’s designs and their flawless execution are among the notable aesthetic qualities of this body of work. This is a catalogue raisonné of Gio Ponti’s ceramics in the collection of the Museo Richard-Ginori della Manifattura di Doccia, one of the first company museums in Italy and the one of the oldest ceramic museums in Europe.
The book aims to give Ponti’s ceramic works a precise chronological order based on correspondence and documentation from the Museum’s archive. On the basis of verified data this volume reconstructs the detailed history of most of the decorations and forms belonging to the collection, certifying their attribution and investigating, on a case by case basis, the iconography of rich and fascinating imagery that informs Doccia’s ceramic art at the time of Ponti.
Text in English and Italian.
The inhabitants of Italian artist Maria Lai’s hometown of Ulassai live surrounded by mountains and a theater of rocks, far from Sardinia’s famous coastline. This book documents Lai’s best-known large-scale collective art project, Legarsi alla Montagna (Bound to the Mountain) which took place over 3 days beginning on September 8th, 1981. Harkening back to a Sardinian legend of a young girl saved from death by chasing a blue ribbon out of a cave, the artist convinced the residents of Ulassai to tie their homes and the mountain together with 17 miles of blue ribbon. A symbolic act of communal unity, the process was tempered by personal conflicts and ancient family feuds, resulting in ribbon that was knotted (for friendship), wrapped tightly (for conflict), or hung with bread (for love). This combination of land art, performance art, and sculpture was captured at the time by renowned photographer Piero Berengo Gardin, in images that the artist has worked with watercolors and markers. Art historian Elena Pontiggia has contributed the text.
Text in English and Italian.
This book addresses a phenomenon that pervades the field of art history: the fact that English has become a widely adopted language. Art history employs language in a very particular way, one of its most basic aims being the verbal reconstruction of the visual past. The book seeks to shed light on the particular issues that English’s rise to prominence poses for art history by investigating the history of the discipline itself: specifically, the extent to which the European tradition of art historical writing has always been shaped by the presence of dominant languages on the continent.
What artistic, intellectual, and historical dynamics drove the pattern of linguistic ascendance and diffusion in the art historical writing of past centuries? How have the immediate, practical ends of writing in a common language had unintended, long-term consequences for the discipline? Were art historical concepts transformed or left behind with the onset of a new lingua franca, or did they often remain intact beneath a shifting veneer of new words?
Includes 10 essays in English, four in Italian, and one in German.
Text in English, German 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.
The Italian goldsmith of the “Paduan School” Giampaolo Babetto is famous for his jewelry – geometrically distinct shapes arranged into refined entities of extraordinary perfection and beauty. However, the artist’s wide-ranging spectrum also includes furniture design, silverwork, sculptures, liturgical utensils, and architecture; even his design drawings possess an autonomous character and artistic value.
In addition to Christian iconography, his sources of inspiration include the fresco cycles of Renaissance artist Jacopo da Pontormo but also echo Minimalism, Neoplasticism, Neoconstructivism, and “arte programmata/cinetica.”
The Entity of Being presents the first overarching survey of the virtuoso Babetto. The comprehensive catalog section is complemented by four contributions that provide exciting insights into the work of this universal artist.
Text in English, German and Italian.
This volume is one of three companion catalogs to an exhibition taking place simultaneously at three venues in Rome on the large-scale projects of Pier Paolo Pasolini. They explore a theme dear to Pasolini — sacredness — with a multidisciplinary approach that will shed a light on his main characteristics as a poet, writer, director, and artist and on the cultural influence he wielded. This is the catalog for the exhibition at Fondazione MAXXI, which explores the many facets of Pasolini’s political engagement. Texts, images, movies, notes, and documents will narrate the beginning of a protest that has endured to this day, with interpretations of Pasolini’s work is seen through the voices of contemporary artists.
An essay by Anne Violaine Houcke analyzes Pasolini’s final period, while Ara Merjan’s text explores his aesthetics. Marco Belpoliti explores the 1975 timeline, giving special attention to the political events most closely connected to Pasolini.
Incudes contributions by Eleonora Cardinale, Roberto Chiesi, Silvia De Laude, Fabio Francione, Giuseppe Garrera, and Vincenzo Trione.
Text in English and Italian.
The Galleria Borghese brings together an extraordinary collection of ancient and modern sculpture within a beautifully decorated villa. This volume, dedicated to modern sculpture (Late Renaissance to Baroque to Neoclassical), marks the start of a new general catalogue of the collection.
The introduction narrates the history of the collection, from its creation by Cardinal Scipione Borghese in the 17th century to its sale to the Italian Republic at the end of the 19th century. The entries are full of chronological details, new attributions, information on restorations and account for the different historical settings thanks to an accurate study of the inventory records of the villa. They include world-famous masterpieces by Algardi, Bernini and Canova among others. The sale to Napoleon of many of its Antique works of art (now in the Louvre) was key to the Borghese’s commission works of ancient inspiration, the analysis of which animates the pages of another section, based on the concepts of copy and remake. The catalogue closes with a section on restoration, that gives an account of the fundamental role of 16- to 18th-century sculptors in the maintenance and transformation of the archaeological collection in relation to the villa’s display requirements.
Text in Italian.
Els Sirejacob and Bram Debaenst take you on their camper van travels through the most beautiful regions of Italy, sharing along the way the most delicious recipes tailored to each destination.
This sequel to Camper Food & Stories is a personal record of the Italian summer road trips of food stylist Els Sirejacob and photographer Bram Debaenst, with absolutely stunning photos of their favorite spots in the Dolomites, the Veneto, Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna, Le Marche, Umbria, Abruzzo, Piemonte, Liguria and the Amalfi coast. It’s also an ode to the culinary traditions and the local specialities of the regions where Els and Bram went camping. They selected the tastiest recipes from Italian cuisine that you can prepare in or near your camper van: uncomplicated dishes that simply burst with flavor, made from fresh, local ingredients, like risotto with hazelnut pesto, authentic ragù, pasta al limone, insalata di polpo or coffee zabaglione? Obviously, all these recipes can also be cooked at home, with the added bonus of feeling like you’re on vacation in the land of la dolce vita.
Born in Milan and trained at the Ecole Polytechnique in Lausanne, Nanda Vigo (1936-2020) made a name for herself in the 1960s with her cross-disciplinary approach to art, architecture and design. An important figure in the Italian avant-garde art scene, she has always favored experimentation and exploration. From 1959, she frequented Lucio Fontana’s studio, before becoming close to the artists Piero Manzoni and Enrico Castellani, who founded the Azimuth gallery in Milan. It was during this period that she discovered the artists and venues of the ZERO movement in Germany, the Netherlands and France. Between 1964 and 1966, she took part in numerous ZERO exhibitions in Europe; in 1965, she organized the legendary Zero Avantgarde exhibition in Lucio Fontana’s studio in Milan. In 1971, she received the New York Award for Industrial Design for the Golden Gate lamp produced by Arredoluce, and completed one of her most emblematic projects for the Casa Museo Remo Brindisi in Lido di Spina. In 1976 she won the first Saint-Gobain prize for glass design, and in 1982 she took part in the 40th Venice Biennale. This book accompanies the exhibition Nanda Vigo, l’espace intérieur at Madd Bordeaux, which presents the artist’s work through immersive installations. It looks at architecture, art and design as fields of total creation, to give us the opportunity to see, perceive and feel all the dimensions of space.
Text in English and French.
This book looks at bronze through the remarkable collections of European bronze sculptures in the Ashmolean Museum of the University of Oxford. Largely thanks to the generosity of Charles Drury Edward Fortnum (1820–1899), the Ashmolean houses one of the world’s great collections of Renaissance and Baroque small bronzes.
The book provides a survey of the collection and an overview of the development of small bronze sculpture during a period of six centuries running from c.1200 to around 1800, although most of the works illustrated here were made within the shorter time frame of c.1450–1650. Any such survey is inevitably shaped by the strengths of the collection, which is conditioned by Fortnum’s taste, notwithstanding later acquisitions that have broadened its scope. He especially loved earlier Italian bronzes and so-called utensils — objects such as inkstands, candlesticks, salt-cellars, mirrors and seals — that are functional as well as beautiful. Fortnum was less interested in sculpture from the later 1500s onwards although, as this selection shows, he acquired some very interesting bronzes from the 17th and 18th centuries that deserve to be better known.
If you were to build the perfect CURVES island in the Mediterranean, then it would probably look something like this: fantastic panoramic roads with fine curves and sea views, every few kilometers a new dream beach with crystal clear water and small towns in between with an Italian way of life and Mediterranean nature.
CURVES puts it to the test and explores the second largest Mediterranean island: Stefan Bogner circles the Italian holiday paradise with a lot of soulful driving and tops off his road trip with a varied program: colorful cities, restaurants for gourmets and insider tips from the locals. Italian way of life in island format!
Text in English and German.
This monograph edited by Ilaria Bernardi is the first comprehensive examination of the oeuvre of the Italian artist Loris Cecchini, from his debut in the mid-1990s to the present.
The publication coincides with the 30th anniversary of the artist’s first inclusion in an exhibition: in three group shows in 1995. The book reviews Cecchini’s solo and group exhibitions, providing information on awards, residencies and lectures, as well as extensive commentary on his most distinctive works.
Alternating between photography, sculpture, drawing, digital processing and environmental installations, Cecchini’s aim is to shape real space by means of innovative materials, focusing on how matter holds together and the aesthetic, architectural, organic, and structural processes associated with it. He has a particular interest in industrial materials such as rubber, resin and steel. His work explores the sense of the real, in a perspective suspended between the natural and the man-made that challenges the viewer’s perception.
This book reconstructs the trajectory of Cecchini’s personal and creative life by interweaving biographical information, historical background and an ample selection of works, thus providing a unique contribution to the literature devoted to the artist.
Text in English and French
After the great success of La Merenda italiana and L’Aperitivo italiano, both curated by Sabatino Sorrentino, this new publication combines the best of Italian cured meats with the iconic pizza, the ultimate and universal dish that, along with fashion, art, music, and la dolce vita, proudly represents Italian culture throughout the world.
This book tells the story and the evolution of a small but great culinary masterpiece that, with its carefully selected ingredients, presents itself every day as something new, enriched and inimitable from North to South.
Text in English and Italian.
In the 1980s and 1990s, with the rise of Silvio Berlusconi, Italian television started changing its face. What was once a monochrome yet illuminating beacon of culture turned into a blinding excuse for everything. Forget ignorance, there’s pleasure! Never mind understanding, just don’t look deeper! In his new book, photographer Stefano De Luigi decodes the hard truths that lie hidden in the static. Curated by Laura Serani with brilliant commentary by Pietro Grossi, the book will be launched in November at Paris Photo.
Text in English and Italian.
Everythingflows is a book of photographs by Laura Veschi in which the image forms the narrative and emotional core of the work.
Guided by the author’s black-and-white photographs, we explore the world of marble in Carrara, beginning in the mountains – the Apuan Alps – which, for Fosco Maraini – orientalist, writer, mountaineer, and anthropologist – evoke ‘the creation of the world’.
In these places, in these mountains, if you say marble, you immediately think of water: marble was in fact formed from water millions of years ago, from deposits of shells and coral; it is water that smooths and shapes it, and water remains the key element in the working of this stone.
Water, a symbol of perpetual movement, runs through Laura Veschi’s photographs as a subtle, underlying presence, accompanying the creative process and the transformation of matter. This reference to the element is an integral part of Veschi’s poetics. For the Carrara-based photographer, the ‘sound’ of water becomes the very voice of photography, an echo that follows the processes of creation and transformation of marble.
Structured like a symphony in four movements, the book guides the reader along a path that moves from the mountain to the studio, from the raw block to the finished form, restoring the sacred, physical, and temporal dimension of marble. Along this journey, Laura introduces us to the sculptor Filippo Tincolini, following the continuous flow of his thought and gesture from the original idea to the completed sculpture.
Laura, a deep connoisseur of the world of marble, captures the tension between what has settled over time and what is still being shaped, between the memory of the stone and the creative impulse that transforms it. Her images do not fix marble in a static idea, but reveal it in its flow, as though sculpture itself were part of an uninterrupted process in which the past is never entirely past and the future is already in the making.
Art, like the river of Heraclitus, passes and at the same time remains; it changes form but does not lose its essence. And so, in marble, in its working, and in the photography that tells its story – everything flows.
Text in English, French and Italian.
Bruna grew up between sheets of dough in her grandparents’ pasta shop. Emanuele was raised in his family’s Roman osteria. After culinary school, they honed their skills in some of Europe’s top kitchens—from Gordon Ramsay in London to Pure C in Cadzand. Today, they’ve combined their Italian roots and culinary know-how in Pastology—a bold, and totally unfiltered community for pasta lovers who don’t play by the rules. In their highly anticipated debut cookbook, the pasta masters guide you from flour to fork. No shortcuts, no compromises – just pure, al dente perfection. You’ll discover all the inside tricks and techniques for making pasta the traditional way—egg-based, eggless, filled. Next up are Bruna and Emanuele’s signature dishes, split into 20 timeless Italian recipes and 25 daring modern creations. Short on time? A handful of speedy sauces will even turn store-bought pasta into something unforgettable. Furthermore, you’ll find clever tips, cheeky stories, and jaw-dropping food photography. This isn’t just a cookbook, it’s a pasta revolution!
Enter the world of Ferrari—a name that ignites passion, commands respect, and defines the very essence of performance. This book is a celebration of the Prancing Horse, a symbol of Italian excellence, racing glory, and automotive artistry.
From the curves of the legendary 250 GTO to the blistering speed of today’s hybrid hypercars, Ferrari has always pushed the boundaries of what’s possible—on the road, on the track, and in the hearts of millions. Every model is a masterpiece. Every engine, a symphony of power and precision.
Richly illustrated and meticulously curated, this book captures the legacy, the design, and the unmistakable presence of Ferrari. Dive into the stories behind the marque’s most iconic machines, its victories in Formula 1, and the visionaries—like Enzo Ferrari—who made it all possible.
Whether you’re a devoted tifoso or simply drawn to the allure of the world’s most desirable cars, this is more than a book. It’s a tribute to the legend, the lifestyle, and the enduring spirit of Ferrari.
Brigantinas by Nicola Lo Calzo is a poetic and political journey through Sardinia’s landscapes of resistance. The book weaves together photography, archival research, and historical reflection to uncover a genealogy of struggles—from 19th-century peasant revolts to contemporary feminist and environmental movements. Lo Calzo approaches the island not as a postcard of identity, but as a living archive of dissent and re-appropriation. Through his lens, Sardinian women—peasants, activists, mythic figures—emerge as central protagonists of an alternative narrative, where land, body, and memory intersect. Both critical and lyrical, Brigantinas questions the mechanisms through which tradition and power shape representation, while celebrating collective resilience and the subaltern imagination. The result is a powerful counter-history of Sardinia—rooted in its past, urgent in its present, and universal in its call for dignity and self-determination.
Text in English and Italian.
Italian power and beauty: a Riva is the Ferrari of the seas. In fact, the two engines produce a similar sound. When it comes to glamor and style on the water, nothing is more captivating than the Aquarama. Conceived by the legendary Carlo Riva, this wooden speedboat has become an icon of Italian design. Loved for its clean lines, its mahogany, its gleaming chrome details, and its signature blue-and-cream upholstery, the Aquarama reflected the optimism of Italy’s early-1960s dolce vita. It is impossible to imagine the glittering French Riviera and the European coastlines without visions of endless summers spent lounging at the stern under the warm sun, accompanied by the gentle roar of the engine as the Aquarama sliced through the waves. The Riva icon enjoyed a legemdary status and was adored by movie stars, heads of state, and members of royal families. From Brigitte Bardot to Elizabeth Taylor, from Gunter Sachs to the Monaco royal family, and countless other celebrities fell under its spell. A true embodiment of riverine elegance and la dolce vita.
FMR Issue No. 18: “The Unreachable House of the Olsons” marks the start of a series from Giovanni Mariotti, “A River of Words, a Cascade of Astonishment” narrates the narrative of Niagara Falls, “Tesseract at the Palazzo” tells how staging art in Venice is an art unto itself, while “Paper Lion” traces Rembrandt’s brush with a big cat. “JACK OF FALCONS BEATS FOUR OF DUCKS” presents unfamiliar fauna in playing cards; “THE AEROPAINTRESS AND HER SWIFT MESSENGERS” reminds us that the one notable female Futurist was looking down from her cockpit at a world newly linked by now-old media; in “BUTTERED SPRINGTIME,” Gloria Fossi links art to asparagus. “THE PALACE OF TWELVE-POINTED STARS” tours us through a Moorish revival palace in Tangier. And “RUNAWAY QUEEN” tells the tale of an independent female royal eager to shed the ballast of her birth in the Eternal City.
The volume analyzes a selected series of “palimpsest facades” of buildings of medieval foundation between Italy and France, in which transformation, restoration and redecoration interventions carried out in later eras speak of the human and material history of cities and their spaces.
Facades are an expression of the buildings’ intended uses, and at the same time vehicles of political, social and cultural messages. Within the complex phenomena of renovation, restoration, and reconstruction, external pictorial and sculptural decorations therefore play a role of great importance, revealing events and interests that transition from the private to the public sphere. Often reconstructable only through written sources, or denounced by the still visible material traces, changes and transformations represent a manifestation of the processes of historical memory and the dynamics that accompany them. These essays, in Italian and English, address previously unpublished aspects of fundamental monuments of medieval art, from Saint Denis in Paris to the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, passing through the Cathedral of Reims and San Petronio in Bologna.
Text in English and Italian.
(Re)discover Art Nouveau at the heart of Brussels. At the end of the 19th century, the anti-academic movement pushed Brussels’ architects towards Art Nouveau. Both Victor Horta, in an organic style, and Paul Hankar, in a more geometrical tendency, created an architecture that quickly gained an international reputation. In a little more than a decade, from 1893 on, hundreds of Art Nouveau-fashioned buildings appeared in Brussels, elaborated first by the great pioneers and later by their students and imitators who are also influenced by the Vienna Secession and other trends of European Art Nouveau. At first, this style fulfilled industrial bourgeoisie’s dreams, yearning to assert itself in the city’s structure through this new, and sometimes exuberant, architecture. This book offers nine walks to discover – in different districts – the multiple aspects of architectural Art Nouveau in Brussels. Witness the personal style of the most important architects as well as decorative methods such as sgraffito. Through interviews with owners, custodians and restorers of Art Nouveau-styled buildings, Brussels Art Nouveau describes the fundamental guardians of this remarkable heritage.