ITALIANESS!
Published annually, IL LIBRO explores Italian art in all its guises from the classical period
through to the present day with an emphasis on the forgotten and unknown.
The fifth volume of IL LIBRO, releasing this autumn, transcends the boundaries of time, much like its predecessors. In this edition, we offer a renewed perspective on the often-overlooked female artists, art historians, and thinkers who played a pivotal role in shaping the course of Italian art.
stories
ARCADIA! – vol. 4 Autumn 2022
On Pastoral in General
and Sannazaro in Particular
text by Anthony Madrid
A misunderstanding about the pastoral is that it was just about dress-up. Poets would concoct wholesome conversations between shepherds, sprinkle in a few goats and love babble, and present rural life amidst fermenting bags of milk as something desirable. They were hinting either that city life was worse or (surprisingly) that city life was better. But pastoral had little to do with shepherds…
Reading Colour and Form
The Architecture of Trees
text by Flora Allen
The Architecture of Trees is unique. Far from a dry urban design manual, it is immediately apparent that it is something different. Its weight and size alone mark it out—at nearly 40cm tall, the height of its pages is determined by the tallest tree they illustrate, the towering giant sequoia, depicted at a 1:100 scale…
Here Nature Has Put Every Pleasure
The Stone Monsters of Bomarzo
text by Thalia Allington-Wood
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