No.9,
Vernal Equinox 2024

The author, a landscape gardener and botanical investigator of great artworks, shows us recondite vegetal details of renowned masterpieces.

Hyperrealistic cacti, painted in oils and garish hues on gigantic canvases by the South Korean artist Lee Kwang-Ho.

The tropical welter of vegetation painted in the cloister of the Mexican monastery of Malinalco bears witness to the encounter (and clash) of cultures.

The Masonic park of the Villa Durazzo Pallavicini in Pegli (near Genoa), conceived as a theatrical spectacle.

Stunningly refined portraits of botanists done by Gaetano Gandolfi for Bologna’s “Pinacotheca Bassiana”.

The botanical festoons frescoed by Giovanni da Udine in Rome’s Villa Farnesina, which include species then newly brought over from the New World.