• Professor Daria Borghese spoke about the ‘fig-leaf campaign’, the cover-up of pagan nude statues which offended Counter-Reformation sensibilities;
• Professor Paul Gwynne was interviewed about the Sack of Rome in 1527 by Imperial troops;
• while Professor Valerie Higgins contributed on early Christian Art from the catacombs.

The series has been screened around the world and is regularly repeated on the various satellite History channels, with excerpts available on Youtube.

More links

• Museum Secrets Website
• Trailer for episode on the Vatican

The Musical is co produced by Stage Entertainment/Disney and the American Comedic Star Whoopy Goldberg.

For more information, please visit the Sister Act website.

This is only one of two major events on cultural heritage being held in Rome in November. Our neighbors, the American Academy in Rome will be hosting a conference on “Saving Cultural Heritage in Crisis Areas” which will include papers on heritage protection in war zones, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, and also areas hit by natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis. AUR professor, Valerie Higgins, will chair a session at this conference and, returning the compliment, American Academy trustee and former fellow, Prof Brian Rose will chair a session at our conference.

Please note – students are welcome at the conference ‘Our Future’s Past: Sustainable Heritage in the 21st Century’ but space is limited because we have more than fifty speakers. If you wish to attend you must reserve a space through the website.

More Links:

• Conference Poster in PDF: Our Future’s Past: Sustainable Heritage in the 21st Century

Personale di Breda Catherine Ennis

Una pittrice irlandese a Todi

di Antonio Carlo Ponti

Ho visto, nella Sala dell’Arengo del Palazzo del Popolo di Todi,  una bella, piacevole, serena teoria di quadri di una eccellente pittrice irlandese, Breda Catherine Ennis, in Italia, e a Roma dove ha studiato all’Accademia  allieva di Guido Strazza e Antonio Scordia, dagli anni Settanta. La sua mostra intitolata “Reminiscenze, presentata dal Sindaco Antonio Ruggiano e dall’Ambasciatore d’Irlanda Patrick Hennessy, come scrive Massimo Mattioli in catalogo è interessante e di qualità anche perché “elegge l’albero a suo plastico riferimento, facendone il veicolo di una sperimentazione che parte da lontano ma riesce – più che guardare al futuro – ad essere senza tempo”. E il  Leitmotiv dell’opera di Ennis, l’albero smilzo e spoglio, frondoso e imponente, quercia  o gelso s’impone ora come un frammento del mondo ora come un territorio dello spirito, cioè albero solo o foresta, in sintonia con il colore che padroneggia la tela e le cromie assumono modulazioni liriche di vasta e nel contempo sottile  consonanza. Bene analizza Mattioli l’opera dell’artista irlandese, quando rileva l’assonanza e la derivazione acuta da Piet Mondrian e il suo “disgregare” i passaggi stagionali e stilistici e seriali di una pianta, fino a determinarne, a furia di decantazioni e stratificazioni, quasi l’invisibilità figurale, riducendo il soggetto a una continuità e contiguità disegnativa, astratta e astrale. Molto affettuoso e valente l’omaggio alla natura della nostra terra, con  la  notevole serie di “Alberi nel vento d’Umbria”, poetica reminiscenza e invocazione quasi francescana nella purezza delle linee e della tavolozza in pastello e acrilico. Il quadro più completo e complesso “Rumors of Autumn”, perfetto nell’armonia spaziale e tenero nei  blu e verdi e bruni, armoniosi come i tronchi e i rami che germinano un assoluto pittorico in forma e in sostanza.

Antonio Carlo Ponti, Critico D’Arte

Translation in English:

Personal Exhibition of Breda Catherine Ennis

An Irish Painter in Todi

In the Sala dell’Arengo, Palazzo del Popolo, Todi, I recently observed a beautiful, pleasurable and serene collection of paintings by an excellent Irish painter, Breda Catherine Ennis, who lives in Rome where she studied at the Accademia. She was a pupil of Guido Strazza and Antonio Scordia (the latter an artist from the 1970’s).  Her exhibition, entitled ‘Reminiscenza’ presented by the Mayor of Todi, Antonio Ruggiano and the Irish Ambassador to Italy, H.E. Patrick Hennessy. Her work is interesting and of quality because the artist has “has chosen the tree as her tangible reference point – making it a means of experimentation which starts from the past, but succeeds (more than looking at the future) in being timeless (universal)” as pointed out by Massimo Mattioli in his presentation for the catalogue.   This is the leitmotif of the work of Ennis.  The tree – slim and bare, luxuriant, leafy and imposing, whether oak or mulberry – is interpreted in one moment as a fragment of the world, then as a territory of the spirit – whether it be a single tree or a forest – in harmony with the masterful use of color on the canvas  and the tonalities which assume lyrical modulations which are both vast and subtle in their concordance.  Mattioli gives a good analysis of the work of the Irish artist, when he notes the assonance and  subtle derivation from Piet Mondrian in his ‘disintegration’ of the seasonal, stylistic and serial phases of a plant to the point of determining, through a vigorous process of sedimentation and stratifications, an almost figurative invisibility, thus reducing the chosen subject matter to a continuous transformation of gestures which become increasingly abstract and ‘astral’.

Very gifted and ‘affectionate’ is her homage to the countryside of Umbria with the formidable series of ‘Alberi nel vento d’Umbria’ a poetic reminiscence and invocation which is almost Franciscan in the purity of the lines and the palette in pastels and acrylics.

The most complete and complex painting is ‘Rumors of Autumn’, which is perfect in its spacial harmony and tender in its use of blues greens and browns – and combined with the harmony of the tree trunks and branches germinate a ‘painting absolute’ both in form and in substance.

A.C. Ponti, Art Critic

The following is a piece written for the catalogue by Massimo Mattioli, art critic:

È un elemento che entra presto nel bagaglio culturale, ed anche visuale, dell’uomo. Spesso carico di valenze ancestrali e simboliche.È quindi normale che l’albero entri anche da subito nel bagaglio visuale dell’uomo che sceglie di comunicare con la sua creatività.  E la storia dell’arte ne mette davanti di continuo, di realtà nelle quali l’albero si è legato a momenti di speciale forza espressiva,come elemento chiave di un linguaggio che cerca forsennatamente di incrociare le vie della percezione collettiva,le esigenze del “pubblico”.  Basti pensare all’arte orientale, dove l’albero fa da groviglio quando vuole veicolare i turbamenti di una continua ricerca interiore, affidandoli ad un decorativismo solo superficialmente effimero.O – per converso – all’albero nella scultura gotica, granitica presenza spesso sintetizzata in poche forme solide che si fanno carico di trasmettere certezze,in epoche dilaniate da tensioni che gli aspetti spirituali e religiosi portavano fino al popolo. E ancora gli alberi rinascimentali, quegli esili segni grafici dei paesaggi belliniani o leonardeschi, incaricati di predisporre leggiadria in composizioni ammiccanti ma velatamente subliminali.

Non di rado poi l’albero è divenuto proprio il fulcro di un evento creativo,il medium a cui si è affidata una “rivelazione”:e qui il riferimento forse più scontato – ma di certo il più pregnante – va alla serie dei Trees di Piet Mondrian,con il grande olandese che affida alla sequenza di nove alberi la sua lezione di sintesi astrattiva del linguaggio,una visione mai così autorevole e decisa su quello che era il passato (realistico) equello che era il futuro (astratto dal reale).

È inquesta temperie che si iscrive l’opera di Breda Catherine Ennis. Enon diciamo “le opere”che vediamo in questa mostra.Ma l’opera nel suo complesso,visto che l’artista elegge l’albero a suo plastico riferimento, facendone il veicolo di una sperimentazione che parte da lontano ma riesce – più che guardare al futuro – ad essere senza tempo.Eallora serve a poco rinvenire uno sguardo dato al Blaue Reiter nell’adottare un’opzione cromatica che si fa ambiente e temperatura materica. O la gestualità ed il segno deciso che sembrano evocare influssi giapponesi, per dare alle composizioni la traccia di un’umanità che si mette in gioco…

–Massimo Mattioli

Translation in English:

The tree is an element which enters easily into the cultural and visual heritage of man. Often it carries with it ancestral and symbolic values.Consequently,it immediately becomes an intrinsic cultural element when the artist chooses to use it as a means of creative communication. The history of art puts this before us continually – with realities where the tree is linked to moments of special expressive forces – as a key element of a language which tries to speak to collective perceptions and the needs of ‘people’. It is sufficient to think of Oriental Art, where the tree becomes a kind of ‘entanglement’ when it wants to create ways to guide the pathways of a continuous interior research, using a kind of decoration which only ‘seems’ ephemeral. Conversely, the tree in Gothic sculpture, a ‘granite presence’ often synthesized in a few solid forms which bear the weight of transmitting certainty, in epochs lanced with tensions, which the spiritual and religious aspects brought to the populations.

Again one looks at Renaissance trees, those slender graphic gestures in the landscapes of Bellini or Leonardo,entrusted with orchestrating harmony in alluring compositions in a veiled and subliminal way. It is not surprising that the tree has become the focal point of a creative event, the ‘medium’ through which a ‘revelation’ has been assigned. The most notable example of this can be seen in the series of Trees by Piet Mondrian where this great Dutch artist uses a sequence of nine trees to impart his ‘lesson’ of the abstract synthesis of ‘language’,a never more influential and decisive ‘vision’ of what was the past (realistic) and what was the future (abstraction of realism).

The work of Breda Catherine Ennis can be read in this current of expression and atmosphere. One does not term the ‘works’ which are seen specifically in this exhibition,but her work in its entirety,seeing that the artist has chosen the tree as her tangible reference point – making it a means of experimentation which starts from the past, but succeeds (more than looking at the future) in being timeless (universal)! There is no need to rediscover the Blaue Reiter, in the adoption of chromatic options which create a material ambient and atmosphere. The gestures and decisive lines, which seem to evoke Japanese influences, give to the compositions traces of a ‘humanity’ which opens itself up to scrutiny…

–Massimo Mattioli

The Italian love affair with sport is passionate, voracious and all-consuming.  It provides a backdrop and a narrative to almost every aspect of daily life in Italy where the distinctively pink-coloured newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport is devoured by almost half a million readers every day. The book interweaves essential themes of Italian history, its politics, society and economy with a history of the passion for sport in the country.

Simon Martin’s research intimately relates to his teaching at the AUR, including his courses on History of Modern Italy and Modern European History. The core of this book is developed in his summer course on Calcio and Politics, Italian Sports and Society (to be offered again in 2012).

• Read the article

The first chapters consist of evolutionary stories told, in the form of a card game, by the gods and goddesses portrayed by Andrea Mantegna in his famous canvas “The Parnassus”. Then, the evolutionary development of the mind, and of its neural correlates within the brain, is illustrated in an imagined sequel to Lucian of Samosata’s True Story, the first classical literature example of a science fiction novel, revisited as a sort of adventurous cosmogonic exploration journey. In the following chapters the author highlights the links of our rational mind to mathematics, and of our emotional sensuality-based body/mind complex to music and the arts, shaping his discussion in the form of short sketches and autobiographical anecdotes.

Finally, he outlines the repercussions of evolutionary and contemporary neuroscientific theories on today’s economic, political and social issues through a lively imaginary debate between Epicurus, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud.

The book is published by Daviesgroup Publishers, Aurora, Colorado.

Paolo Crocchiolo’s new book is a delightful collection of erudite meditations on evolutionary biology, all festively disguised as conversations among a remarkable cast of characters — Gods, philosophers, artists, a Hollywood crowd, and scientific academia. One smiles and one learns.

— Antonio Damasio
Director, Brain and Creativity Institute,
University of Southern California

The cover: Gian Lorenzo Bernini: The Rape of Persephone (detail); Roma, Galleria Borghese. Courtesy of: Soprintendenza Speciale per il Patrimonio Storico, Artistico ed Etnoantropologico e per il Polo Museale della città di Roma

• Listen to James Walston’s remarks on Vatican Radio

Click the image below to watch discussion:

Edited by Maurizio Carbone and published by Rowman and Littlefield.

• Chapter 3:
  Italy as a Foreign Policy Actor: The Interplay of Domestic and International Factors
  Prof. James Walston
• Chapter 6:
  Italy as a Multilateral Actor: The Inescapable Destiny of a Middle Power
  Luca Ratti