Fondazione Luigi Rovati: Cataloghi

An untiring assistant and patient model, Diego Giacometti shared 40 years of life and work with his brother Alberto, in what was one of the most intense symbiotic relationships in the history of modern art. Diego’s creative career embraced sculpture and design, and his approach to the art of decoration was extremely personal. The furniture and objects he made  possessed a spare, severe, elegance, which was embellished by subtle references to past civilizations, starting with that of the Etruscans, and offset by the bronze he favoured. His instinctive liking for animals led him to portray them often, also in furniture, where they were not simply ornamental elements.  Indeed, they transformed the actual structure of the object, enlivened the internal volumes and made them even lighter and more airy, evoking the essential lines of a landscape. Diego shared these concepts with the famous interior decorator Jean-Michel Frank, with whom he worked on several occasions. As well as receiving many private commissions, Diego was invited to create projects for public institutions, from his work for the Musée National Marc Chagall to the decoration for the new Musée Picasso in Paris at the age of eighty, which definitively, and posthumously, consecrated him as an artist. In this catalogue, published on the occasion of the first Italian exhibition on Diego Giacometti at the Fondazione Luigi Rovati, curator Casimiro Di Crescenzo traces a biographical profile of the artist, sheds light on several aspects of the Giacometti brothers’ life in Paris, clarifies certain facts, and unearths interesting new information, also in Diego’s correspondence with family members. The four texts introducing the sections of works describe the main thematic nuclei of Diego’s production (sculpture, furniture, objects, depictions of animals), as well as his aforementioned role as a model for others, his father, and especially Alberto. The catalogue is enriched with essays by Roger Montandon, Eberhard W. Kornfeld and Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Italian edition onlyThe Kaminia stele, held by the National Archeological Museum in Athens, is one of the three most illustrious inscriptions of antiquity that have guided generations of Italians in exploring the history of Ancient Greece. Created in the 6th century BCE as a grave marker and unearthed between 1883 and 1885 on the island of Lemnos, the stele was originally around two metres high, but only the upper half has survived. It bears the profile of a man holding a spear and shield, who had distinguished himself in society for his prowess as a warrior.  Around the figure and on the right-hand side of the stone are incised two hundred letters of the Greek alphabet: 33 words in all, on 11 lines in alternating directions – from top to bottom, then bottom to top, or from right to left and vice versa. However, the language written in Greek is neither Greek nor Indo-European; it belongs to the same family as Etruscan and Raetic – spoken and written in an area bordering on Austria, Switzerland and Germany. Archaeologists, historians and linguists investigating the Kaminia stele and its context find themselves faced with a still unanswered question. Were the inhabitants of Lemnos, documented by the stele and other inscriptions, of the same lineage as the Etruscans who migrated from Anatolia, with one group settling on Lemnos and another arriving in Etruria?  Or are we dealing with Etruscans who arrived on Lemnos from Italy to establish a colony or trading station, and with pirates in the Aegean? It is difficult to know what happened. The community that wrote on stone and terracotta in the Lemnian language is indistinguishable from other social and ethnic groups who lived on the island, with whom it may have shared the same material and figurative culture, technologies, religious and funerary rites, and ways of living. If the Tyrrhenians of Lemnos came from Etruria, the complete absence of objects made in Italy would indicate that they did not maintain much contact with their homeland. Regarding the hypothesis of migrants from Anatolia, we are completely in the dark concerning their provenance, culture and original traditions. “No one saw the truth, there is only opinion.” (Simonides of Ceos). The story of the stele and of the people of whom it was an expression, is told in this book and in the exhibition at Fondazione Luigi Rovati which runs until 18 July 2023. The show is promoted in collaboration with the Italian Archaeological School of Athens, which has been conducting excavations and research on Lemnos for a hundred years. The volume features four texts by Carlo De Domenico, Riccardo Di Cesare, Germano Sarcone and Emanuele Papi,  director of the Italian Archaeological School of Athens,  who also wrote the introduction.

With texts by Lucio Rovati, Giovanna Forlanelli, Salvatore Settis, Mario Abis, Mario Cucinella, Giulio Paolucci and Martina Corgnati. The volume describes the genesis and operating principles of both the Fondazione Luigi Rovati, a material and immaterial infrastructure of the knowledge society, and the Museo d’arte in the Foundation’s headquarters at 52 Corso Venezia in Milan, where ancient and modern interact in a historical and artistic continuum, in an antique palazzo remodelled by architect Mario Cucinella.

Italian edition onlyThe chandelier held by the Museo dell’Academia Etrusca in Cortona isone of the most renowned  Etruscan masterpieces.  Considered one of the finest examples of ancient bronze-work, itweighs more than a half a ton. The only Etruscan chandelier to have been found intact, it entered the collections of the museum after being discovered by chance and following complex negotiations for its acquisition. Today experts seem to agree that the monumental  lamp with 16 lips was made in a workshop located in the hinterland of central-southern Etruria, between Arezzo and Orvieto. An area that in the 4th century BCE was well equipped for a production of this kind, as indicated by the other large bronzes known to have originated there. The complex iconography, the remarkable quality of the casting technique, and the precious material, enable us to exclude the possibility of such a valuable artefact’s being installed in a private property. The most plausible hypothesis is that it was destined for a public sanctuary, where it would have been able to perform its function  uninterruptedly to great effect.The volume includes essays on the theme of lighting in the Etruscan world, antiquarian history, and the creation and analysis of the decorative apparatus of the chandelier. These are complemented by a selection of letters and documents taken from Nuove letture del lampadario etrusco (1988) and a new introductory essay by Paolo Bruschetti and Giulio Paolucci, written especially for the exhibition at the Fondazione Luigi Rovati Art Museum.