The Scrovegni Chapel. Giotto and the Canticle of Nature
On the occasion of the opening of the exhibition “Under the stars of Giotto” a conversation will be held with the participation of:
Sunil Singh, The Mythology of the Circle
Giulia Silvia Ghia, Restoring Giotto
Fabio Finotti in dialogue with Maria Beatrice Autizi, The Scrovegni Chapel. Giotto and the Canticle of Nature
November 14, 2023 6:00 pm – Italian Cultural Institute of New York – 686 Park Avenue – New York – FREE ADMISSION
On the occasion of the talk, it will be possible to purchase Maria Beatrice Autizi’s latest book, The Scrovegni Chapel. Giotto and the Canticle of Nature
Between 1303 and 1305 Giotto di Bondone painted the internal walls of the small church annexed to the palace of the rich banker Enrico Scrovegni in Padua. For the artist, who left his greatest masterpiece here, it was the opportunity to bring about a pictorial revolution that would make him the precursor of the Florentine Renaissance and, more generally, of modern painting. In the Scrovegni Chapel Giotto elaborates a new language that translates into pictorial form the masterful lesson of beauty and the sense of nature acquired during the period in which he painted in the Basilica of San Francesco in Assisi. Just as the saint of poverty had written the Canticle of the Creatures in the vernacular so that it could be understood by the greatest possible number of people, both educated and common, so Giotto moved towards painting as close to the real world as possible. Tracing the life of the greatest artist of the Middle Ages, the book gives a complete reading of the entire cycle of frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel, accompanying us on a journey inside Giotto’s magical world where the divine, man and nature coexist. We therefore discover the presence of a naked secret, we approach a new representation of space, volumes, feelings, attitudes and the psychology of the characters, we allow ourselves to be surprised by the truthful representation of herbs and flowers, which precedes by approximately 90 years the Carrarese Herbarium, considered the first herbarium in the modern sense, you can admire the detailed anatomical description of the human bodies and the sense of light, inspired by the studies of the time developed at the University of Padua. Anticipating the decoration of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel by about two centuries, we perceive the artist’s desire to unify, through painting, the other two major arts, sculpture and architecture. A set of choices that no painter before him had ever dared to make. These and other elements allow us to get to know a secret Giotto, who finds in nature and men such a fascinating and innovative source of inspiration as to lay the foundations of an original painting accessible to all, just as Dante was laying the foundations of the new Italian language.
Graduated in History from the University of Padua, Beatrice Autizi attended a three-year post-graduate specialist course in Art History; lives in Padua. She was professor of art history at the Istituto Statale d’arte “P. Selvatico” of Padua. Art critic and journalist, she wrote for ten years for the cultural page of the newspapers “Il Mattino di Padova”, “La Nuova Venezia” and “La Tribuna di Treviso”, and is the author of art catalogs and volumes on Padua, its art and its history, some with her husband Francesco Autizi. Since 1988 she has planned and organized cultural events and art exhibitions in Italy and abroad. In February 2007, on the proposal of the Order of Excellent Paduans, she received the Seal of the City of Padua for cultural merits. In 2017, after long and in-depth research she published, Giotto’s Stars. Enrico Scrovegni and the Templars, (Editoriale Programma), a historical novel whose backdrop is a grandiose medieval Padua, in which she claims the presence of numerous Templar signs inside the famous chapel frescoed by Giotto.
Giulia Silvia Ghia. Councilor for Culture, School, Sport, Youth Policies of the 1st Municipality of Rome since November 2021, has long been involved in projects for the conservation and enhancement of cultural heritage, carried out with the non-profit Verderame cultural project, through the raising of private funds not only Italians. Art historian and restorer graduated from the ICR in Rome, expert in seventeenth-century artistic production, curator of exhibitions, author of books, podcasts and videos. She is Assistant Professor of History of Italian Art at New Jersey City University and teaches Conservation, Management and Enhancement of Cultural Heritage, at the master degree in Law and New Technologies for the Enhancement of Cultural Heritage, of which she is a member of the Board of Directors, at the Faculty of Law at the Sapienza University of Rome. Ghia is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia. As a member of The Circle Italia onlus and the International Women’s Forum, she is an activist on the issues of leadership and female empowerment.
Sunil Singh is a Lead Ambassador for The Global Math Project and was a regular contributor to The New York TimesNumberplay blog. A self-proclaimed “math jester”, he travels all over North America as a speaker/presenter sharing the joy of mathematics.
Reservation no longer available