Sergio Risaliti

Palazzo Vecchio portrays the architecture of the historic Florentine palace immortalised by the internationally-renowned photographer Massimo Listri. The first complete and organic photographic documentation of the building, updated in the wake of recent restoration and re-functionalization, the sequence of images runs page after page through the exterior and the interior of the palace. The alternation of rooms, courtyards and museum spaces, enriched by countless pictorial and sculptural elements, gives life, in Listri’s view, to a faithfully objective overview of the building that, since the end of the 13th century, has been the heart of Florence’s civic and political life, still today a place for meetings, debate and dialogue. The volume, edited by Sergio Risaliti, offers brief essays by experts on the subject such as Serena Pini and Carlo Francini, with a contribution by Mayor Dario Nardella. Text in Italian.

Palazzo Vecchio portrays the architecture of the historic Florentine palace immortalised by the internationally-renowned photographer Massimo Listri. The first complete and organic photographic documentation of the building, updated in the wake of recent restoration and re-functionalization, the sequence of images runs page after page through the exterior and the interior of the palace. The alternation of rooms, courtyards and museum spaces, enriched by countless pictorial and sculptural elements, gives life, in Listri’s view, to a faithfully objective overview of the building that, since the end of the 13th century, has been the heart of Florence’s civic and political life, still today a place for meetings, debate and dialogue. The volume, edited by Sergio Risaliti, offers brief essays by experts on the subject such as Serena Pini and Carlo Francini, with a contribution by Mayor Dario Nardella.

Beautiful Lies documents Teheran-born, New York-based artist Ali Banisadr’s 2021 show in Florence in honour of the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri. The “beautiful lies” beneath which truth is hidden is an expression used by Dante in describing his writing - and allegorical poetry in general - and it is perfectly suited to Banisadr’s work. His powerful brushwork and strong colours go below the surface of his personal reality, revealing violence and isolation, anguish and wonder, but also memories and imagination. For this show, which was split between two venues, he was commissioned to create an installation of site-specific paintings (also called Beautiful Lies). The text is by Sergio Risaliti, director of the Museo Novecento in Florence.

Cecily Brown (b.1969, London) is one of the most acclaimed painters working today. Her inimitable style shifts effortlessly between abstraction and figuration, confounding our understanding of these painterly modes and conventions. Published on the occasion of an exhibition at Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, Naples, this lavishly illustrated catalogue is an in-depth look at one of her most conceptually rich and expressive paintings. Cecily Brown: The Triumph of Death delves deep into this gigantic, multi-panel work, which features the figure of Death riding roughshod over a town and its residents. Inspired by a 1446 Italian fresco housed in the Palazzo Abatellis in Palermo, Italy, Brown’s The Triumph of Death is the culmination of a fascination with death that has permeated her work for several decades. With an introduction by Sylvain Bellenger and newly commissioned texts by Gavin Delahunty, Catherine Foulkrod and Sergio Risaliti, as well as featuring a set of related, previously unseen drawings, the book provides unparalleled analysis of this extraordinary work. Text in English and Italian.

To mark the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri, Italian artist Mimmo Paladino has illustrated the complete text of Dante's epic masterpiece, the Divine Comedy, with 50 original lithographs. In this beautifully printed book, edited by noted art historian Sergio Risaliti, Paladino has captured the unrestrained imagination and expressive force of Dante’s classical narrative poem. This exceptional publication includes essays by Risaliti, literature professor Riccardo Bruscagli, author and curator Cristina Acidini, and Giorgio Bacci, a professor of cultural studies at the University of Florence.

We have been walking upright for almost six million years and soon learned how to offload our body’s weight on the arch of the foot. Salvatore Ferragamo dedicated all his life to the study of the foot’s anatomy, also researching into architecture and engineering, as we can understand by looking at his patents. Walking, dancing barefoot or en pointe, advancing along a wire in the manner of a tight-rope walker, climbing mountains, stepping and marching on orders, wandering about to find oneself, roaming around: these are just some of the themes dealt with in Equilibrium, the new project by the Museo Salvatore Ferragamo, curated by Stefania Ricci and Sergio Risaliti. This volume is based on the comparison among magnificent, important and meaningful artworks of various origin. The project has been developed through several media: painting, sculpture, photography, video, cinema and printed editions. The geometric balancing of Wassily Kandinsky is displayed alongside the thread-like structures of Fausto Melotti; Albrecht Dürer’s Fortuna with Giulio Paolini’s funambulist; and portraits of Nijinsky alongside those of Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham and Trisha Brown.

Salvatore Ferragamo was a shoemaker, proud of being one and defined himself as such. Growing up in the workshop, he cultivated the craft and that connection between mind and hand which underlies many masterpieces of art. This beautifully illustrated catalogue describes Salvatore Ferragamo’s craft trying to identify the sources of his creativity and his innate ability to assimilate the spirit of the times. Through almost 100 models for footwear the book takes into consideration two periods in his life where conditions encouraged inspiration and visions to flourish and which influenced the artist’s later life: his move to California around 1915 and his return to Florence in 1927. Ferragamo’s experience in Hollywood was an opportunity to meet extraordinary people of the emerging cinematographic industry. The culture of the territory also was source of inspiration: the decoration used by the American Indians, the fabrics and colours of quilts made by Quaker communities, the richness of South American craftsmanship, are reflected in the models of those years and return decades later in his innovations like a signature style. In Florence Ferragamo was impressed not only by the architecture, but also by the public and private collections of applied arts. Alongside an interest in tradition and historical finds, he was also affected by experiments with material and colour carried out by avant-garde artists, the Futurists in particular, for whom in the Twenties Florence itself was a first order cultural epicentre.