Bertolt Brecht | Of all the works of man / Tra tutte le opere

Of all the works of man I like best

Those which have been used.

The copper pots with their dents and flattened edges

The knives and forks whose wooden handles

Have been worn away by many hands: such forms

Seemed to me the noblest.

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) | Crouching Boy, 1524 | Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Giovanni Segantini | L’angelo della vita (Dea cristiana), 1894

The Angel of Life (Christian Goddess) was commissioned in 1891 or shortly before by the banker Leopoldo Albini, together with the Pagan Goddess, now exhibited alongside it.

The two works were intended to form a diptych on the theme of women, a mystical mother in the case of the painting considered here, a worldly and lustful vision in the other.

The two figures are portraits of the family nanny, Baba, and of her son Gottardo (painted from memory, since he must have been twelve years old at the time).

Giovanni Segantini | L’angelo della vita (Dea cristiana), 1894 (detaglio) | GAM - Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Milano

Spinario (Boy pulling a thorn from his foot)

Boy with Thorn, also called Fedele (Fedelino) or Spinario, is a Greco-Roman Hellenistic bronze sculpture of a boy withdrawing a thorn from the sole of his foot, now in the Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome.

There is a Roman marble version of this subject from the Medici collections in a corridor of the Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

The sculpture was one of the very few Roman bronzes that was never lost to sight.

The work was standing outside the Lateran Palace when the Navarrese rabbi Benjamin of Tudela saw it in the 1160s and identified it as Absalom, who "was without blemish from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head".

Lo Spinario | Palazzo dei Conservatori, Musei Capitolini

Metropolitan Museum of Art | Storia del Museo

Le prime radici del Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) risalgono al 1866 a Parigi, Francia, quando un gruppo di americani decise di creare una "istituzione nazionale e galleria d'arte" per portare l'arte e l'educazione artistica al popolo americano.

L'avvocato John Jay, che propose l'idea, portò avanti rapidamente il progetto al suo ritorno negli Stati Uniti dalla Francia.

Sotto la presidenza di Jay, l'Union League Club di New York radunò leader civici, uomini d'affari, artisti, collezionisti d'arte e filantropi alla causa.

The Prado Mona Lisa, 1507-1516

This version of the Mona Lisa (Louvre) was painted by one of Leonardo’s pupils.

The fact that each pentimento, or change, in Leonardo’s original (to the bust, outline of the veil and position of the fingers) is repeated here suggests that the two works were created simultaneously.

There are also differences with respect to the original, in the unfinished landscape and on the face.

Overall, the panel seems to reflect an intermediate stage in the creation of the Louvre painting.

Prado Mona Lisa, 1503-1516 | Museo Nacional del Prado

Antonia Pozzi | Ti do me stessa, 1934

Bellezza

Ti do me stessa,

le mie notti insonni,

i lunghi sorsi

di cielo e stelle - bevuti

sulle montagne,

la brezza dei mari percorsi

verso albe remote.

Harold Speed

Sylvius D. Paoletti | Genre painter

Sylvius D. Paoletti (1864-1921) was born in Venice, where he worked all his life.

He is the son of the famous genre and landscape painter Antonio Ermolao Paoletti (1833-1912) and learned the art of painting in his father's workshop.

In his works Paoletti devoted himself mainly to serene genre scenes settled in Venice, in which he skillfully captures the southern light with bright and glowing colors.

Paoletti died in 1921.

Giovanni Segantini | Mezzogiorno sulle Alpi / Midday in the Alps, 1891

"I am now working passionately in order to wrest the secret of Nature’s spirit from her.

"Nature utters the eternal word to the artist: love, love; and the earth sings life in spring, and the soul of things reawakens"

- Giovanni Segantini.

"Midday in the Alps" is an oil on canvas painting by Italian painter Giovanni Segantini (1858-1899) executed in 1891.

It currently resides at the Segantini Museum in St. Moritz.

Vincenzo Cabianca | Macchiaioli painter

Vincenzo Cabianca (1827-1902) was an Italian painter of the Macchiaioli group.

He was born in Verona in modest circumstances. He began his artistic training at the Verona Academy under Giovanni Caliari, and then studied at the Venice Academy from 1845-1847.

An admirer of Giuseppe Mazzini, he became associated with the Young Italy movement and was taken prisoner while participating in the defense of Bologna in 1848.

After his release he lived in Venice from 1849-1853.

Giovanni Segantini | Spring in the Alps, 1897

"Spring in the Alps" was created in 1897 by Italian Divisionism / Symbolist painter Giovanni Segantini (1858-1899).

The painting is in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

"Spring in the Alps" depicts a panoramic alpine landscape near the village of Soglio - visible on the right with its recognizable church tower - in Val Bregaglia in southwestern Switzerland.

Giovanni Segantini | Spring in the Alps, 1897 | J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Ludovico Carracci | The penitent Saint Peter, 1613

Although mentioned by Ludovico's earliest biographer Malvasia as early as 1678, all trace of this monumental and imposing image of repentance was lost until its rediscovery only thirty years ago.

Malvasia recorded how Ludovico had given to Count Camillo Bolognetti, a nobleman and occasional amateur painter in the Carracci workshop, 'la figura intera di quel S. Pietro piangente, così risentito e terribile'.

In a handwritten note included in the 1841 edition of his Felsina pittrice the picture is referred to as 'San Pietro piangente l'aversi negato discepolo di Cristo, figura sedente, meno del naturale'.

Alberto Moravia: "L'invidia è come una palla di gomma che più la spingi sotto e più ti torna a galla.."

• "A Roma è avvenuto il contrario di quello che avviene nelle altre capitali: la città si è ingrandita e arricchita; ma è rimasta legata a un’idea del vivere elementare e grossolana. Cinica, scettica, priva di ideali, materiale, ottusa, Roma presenta insomma lo spettacolo sconcertante di una capitale il cui fine principale anzi unico sia quello di vivere alla giornata o meglio di sopravvivere".

Renato Guttuso | Portrait of Alberto Moravia, 1982

Lettere d'amore | Gabriele D’Annunzio ad Eleonora Duse: Rimani!

Rimani! Riposati accanto a me.

Non andare.

Io ti veglierò.

Io ti proteggerò.

Eleonora Duse e Gabriele D’Annunzio

Oscar Ghiglia | Post-Macchiaioli painter

Born and raised in Livorno, Italian painter Oscar Ghiglia (1876-1945) chose Florence to pursue his artistic ambitions.

Ghiglia was initially trained by his father, who was also a painter, before studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence.

He was particularly influenced by the teachings of Giovanni Fattori while also open to innovations from across the Alps, in particular to the oeuvre of Cézanne and from as well as Swiss and German artists such as Arnold Böcklin and Franz von Lenbach.

Luigi Busi | Genre painter

Luigi Busi (1837-1884) was an Italian painter, born in Bologna.

Busi studied at the Academy of Fine Arts of Bologna, though by 1868, he is documented to be in Milan.

He was named academic professor at the Bolognese Academy in 1871.

In 1876, he was named Honorary Associate of the Brera Academy.

His early training was in an environment characterized by Realist depictions.

Ferdinando Vichi | Lo scultore Romantico

A raccontarci della vita dello scultore Italiano Ferdinando Vichi riportiamo l'articolo dello scrittore Italiano Marco Vichi, il quale, a sua volta, fa riferimento ad un articolo del giornale "Il Telegrafo", pubblicato il 2 novembre 1932.

Nel 1964, la famiglia Vichi donò all'Archivio Fotografico Toscano di Prato 786 lastre fotografiche realizzate dallo scultore fiorentino Ferdinando Vichi.

Francesco Salviati | Christ Carrying the Cross, 1547-1548

The "Christ Carrying the Cross" is a painting by Italian painter Francesco Salviati, executed in 1547-1548. The painting is in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.

The small size of the painting indicates that it was intended for a bedroom or private chapel.

It focuses on a close-up of Christ’s face, as he makes his way towards Mount Calvary with the cross on his shoulder.

Francesco Salviati (1509-1563) | Christ Carrying the Cross, 1547-1548 | Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Giacomo Leopardi | Il Sogno / The Dream, 1820-1821

Era il mattino, e tra le chiuse imposte

Per lo balcone insinuava il sole

Nella mia cieca stanza il primo albore;

Quando in sul tempo che più leve il sonno

E più soave le pupille adombra,

"Timor di me?" | La poesia di Pasolini per la Callas

Nell'estate del 1970, Pier Paolo Pasolini (Scrittore, poeta, autore e regista cinematografico e teatrale italiano, 1922-1975) compose dieci poesie pubblicate nella raccolta Transumanar e organizzar, silloge poetica del 1971, in cui Maria Callas (1923-1977) non veniva mai nominata, nonostante lei fosse, in Verba, «la ragazza ancora orgogliosa di essere di città e piena della morale antica».

Pier Paolo Pasolini e Maria Callas sul set del film "Medea"

Alda Merini: "Tra le tue braccia"

C'è un posto nel mondo

dove il cuore batte forte,

dove rimani senza fiato,

per quanta emozione provi,

dove il tempo si ferma

e non hai più l'età;

Gis De Maeyer