Category: Art
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The indecipherable Voynich manuscript
Imagine a small volume of just over two hundred pages, modest in size, entirely covered with enigmatic drawings and a script that no one has ever managed to decipher. Among its illustrations, at times grotesque, are impossible plants, organisms that belong to no known botany, and female figures immersed in intricate systems of tubes and…
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Saint Angelo in Formis and its wonderful frescoes
Along the western slopes of Mount Tifata, near Capua, stands the ancient basilica of Saint Angelo in Formis. The building, austere and modest in size, gracefully overlooks a terrace dominating the valley below. The sacredness of the place can be felt even before visiting the church: it is in the harmoniously ordered nature, in the…
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The Basilica of Saccargia and Romanesque painting in Sardinia
The Basilica of Saccargia stands proud and solemn in the centre of a peaceful valley in north-western Sardinia, visible from afar1. This inland area preserves a harmony that soothes the soul. Here nature seems to obey an order that descends from the divine. The church stands out with its slender profile alternating between two colours,…
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San Pietro di Sorres, a Romanesque masterpiece in Sardinia
In the heart of Meilogu in Sardinia, on a gentle hillock in the countryside of Borutta, stands the Romanesque church of San Pietro di Sorres, formerly a cathedral. The building arose at the time of the Judicates, when the small village of Sorres was an episcopal seat. It was the judge of Torres Barisone II…
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The church of San Giorgio di Valpolicella, treasure of art and history
On the top of a gentle hillock in Valpolicella, stands the parish church of San Giorgio. Austere, with its exposed stones and without decoration, the building seems to have been there since time immemorial. Walking up the paths along the hillside, guided by the sight of its massive bell tower, we can almost breathe in…
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Pomposa Abbey, a treasure chest of art
That strip of land between the branches of the Po Delta, Goro and Volano, and enclosed by the Adriatic lagoons further east, became increasingly unhealthy. The green forests that the Romans had carefully governed and the reclaimed expanses were a memory. Rather, they appeared as a valley of pristine and treacherous marshes. Historians identify the…
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The abbey of Saint Antimo, on the way to light
The abbey of Saint Antimo is reachable by following a straight path, which stretches slowly between the slopes of verdant hills, adorned with centuries-old olive and cypress trees, and expanses of green vineyards. These are the noble Brunello crops that spread out in the Montalcino sun, as in Castelnuovo dell’Abate. But the visitor’s path also…
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The town of Altomonte and Cistercian Romanesque in Calabria
The town of Altomonte stands on a promontory overlooking the wide Esaro River valley, at an altitude of around 455 metres above sea level, between the Sibari plain and the imposing Sila mountain range. The current urban layout follows the organisation of the defensive structures built in the Middle Ages, including the remains of walls…
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The “Madonna and the UFO” in Florence
The Sala d’Ercole in Florence’s historic Palazzo Vecchio houses a mysterious painting, known as the “Madonna and the UFO”. The tondo depicting a Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist was probably painted by Sebastiano Mainardi, although its attribution is still debated, and dates back to the second half of the 15th century. The…
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The Tempietto longobardo of Cividale del Friuli
The doorway that gives access to the Tempietto longobardo of Cividale del Friuli not only separates the spaces of matter. It also symbolizes that moment of transit, in history and arts, that characterized the epic of the Longobards in Italy. In the ancient Roman village of Forum Iulii stands the limen crossed by Alboin in…