In the evocative setting of the Sala del Capitano in the Rocca visconteo-veneta in Lonato, within the monumental complex of the Ugo Da Como Foundation, a captivating exhibition celebrates the charm of the Eternal City: Piranesi | Basilico. Views of Rome. Visitors can admire the eighteenth-century visions in the engravings of Giovanni Battista Piranesi and the unparalleled photographs by Gabriele Basilico depicting the same views of the eternal city in 2000.
Views of Rome, the title of the collection of etchings by Giovanni Battista Piranesi (Venice, 1720 – Rome, 1778), is also the title of the photographic reportage commissioned by Gabriele Basilico (Milan, 1944-2013) for the Swiss magazine “DU” in 1989. The photographer periodically returned to confront the chaotic spaces of Rome, the same ones that we tourists often overlook, despite the strong contrasts between the ancient and the contemporary, which evoke multiple emotions. The exhibition immerses us in these views, allowing us to imagine present and/or past characters visiting the city.
In 2010, the Cini Foundation (Venice) commissioned Basilico to reinterpret Piranesi’s Views of Rome and revisit them: today we can admire the results of this work thanks to the collaboration between the Ugo Da Como Foundation and the Gabriele Basilico Archive.
In fact, since 2011, the Piranesi collection has been preserved in the Library of the Ugo Da Como Foundation, as it was entrusted to the foundation by the heirs of Cav. Luigi Nocivelli (1930-2006). Nocivelli, a well-known entrepreneur from Brescia, devoted the last ten years of his life to bibliophilia, creating an extraordinary collection of over 400 volumes printed between the 15th and 20th centuries, including five editions of Piranesi’s works, which include the large Views of Rome exhibited in Lonato, printed by the engraver starting from 1748.
We can capture the poetry of Rome in the continuous dialogue between Piranesi’s ancient engravings and Gabriele Basilico’s contemporary photography, with 32 views complemented by 2 large photographs: the interior of the Colosseum and the view of the Arch of Septimius Severus with the Pronaos of the Temple of Saturn, as well as the extraordinary Campo Marzio by Piranesi (1762), also from the aforementioned Nocivelli Collection.
“…Basilico counterposes Piranesi’s passion for Roman architecture with a lucid respect for the monument itself… he places the vestiges of the past in a time that seems even more suspended than the present in the engravings themselves… Basilico affirms in his images inspired by Piranesi’s plates the resilience of the temples, arches, and palaces of ancient Rome, the stubborn resistance of stone and marble to the passing centuries, and an austere silence that still pervades today” (F. Maggia).
Indeed, while at times the eighteenth-century language prevails, strongly antiquating the views as if we were still in the centuries of the Roman Empire, then it seems to change its mind and introduces sudden carriages or visitors in eighteenth-century attire, calmly standing next to the monuments. Other times, it is Basilico who immortalizes the Tiber and Castel Sant’Angelo.
The imagination of the visitor-observer manages to reconstruct a projection of centuries that envelops them, so that they can no longer forget the exhibition and will continue to desire to see it again, to admire the Trajan’s Column, Castel Sant’Angelo, the Capitoline Hill with the staircase leading to the Church of Ara Coeli in Piazza Navona, St. Peter’s Square and Basilica… surrounded by dozens of other equally suggestive images. The exhibition succeeds, with this strategic display, in making the extraordinary private library, one of the most important in Italy, preserved in the Casa del Podestà of the Ugo Da Como Foundation, and the work of Gabriele Basilico, one of the most prestigious photographers of urban landscapes, known to an increasingly wider audience. Milan has recently dedicated a major monographic exhibition to him, staged between Palazzo Reale and the Triennale. The exhibition awaits you, with the catalog edited by F. Maggia.
PIRANESI | BASILICO. Views of Rome
Opening hours: Monday to Sunday, from 10 am to 5 pm
Via Rocca, 2 – Lonato del Garda (Brescia)
Tel. 0309130060 – prenotazioni@fondazioneugodacomo.it – www.fondazioneugodacomo.it
Italian Version
