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 most recent "apparitions" of previously unseen paintings by Rembrandt and their adventures on the art market.

Forty years after André Chastel's renowned essay Musca Depicta, the Labirinto della Masone pays homage by bringing together painted flies from all over Europe.

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”.

An exhibit retracing the most meaningful moments in Franco Maria Ricci's publishing history, marked by the constant presence of the colour black.

This time Mr PA dwells on the depiction of the Great Indian Fruit Bat found in the Indian bestiary known as the Impey Album

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