Salvatore Settis

Italian edition onlyThe exhibition “Storia di un gesto. Il mito di Meleagro dall’arte classica a Warburg, a Picasso”, curated by Salvatore Settis (13 May–2 August 2026), is structured around three closely interconnected elements.The first is the myth of Meleager, one of the most powerful narratives of the classical tradition; the second is a Roman sarcophagus with a relief depicting the Death of Meleager (c. 170–180 AD), held in a private collection and show to the public for the first time. The third is the so-called ‘gesture of despair’, one of the most incisive figurative formulas of pain in the Western artistic tradition. Born and codified in Roman times, this gesture experienced a long eclipse in European figurative tradition, before re-emerging from the 13th century onwards and resume a central role in the representation of suffering. The exhibition, and the catalogue accompanying the exhibition, traces its origins in the classical antiquity, documents its prolonged absence from the European figurative tradition, and follows its reappearance, from Nicola Pisano to Giotto, through to its persistence in contemporary art, with references extending as far as Pablo Picasso’s Guernica.As early as 1901, Aby Warburg identified the figure seized by despair on the Meleager sarcophagi as a decisive source for the “resurrection” of this gesture after a long oblivion, exemplified in the exhibition by three panels from the Mnemosyne Atlas.With exts by: Salvatore Settis, Maurizio Bettini, Licia Luschi, Giulia Ammannati, Maria Luisa Catoni, Giovanna Targia, Axel Heil e Roberto Ohrt, Anna Lucchini e Francesca Siena.