Naturalis historia, 2022
GPE-0153
Lithograph
Fedrigoni Tintoretto
50 x 35 cm
Signed on the recto, bottom right: “Giulio Paolini”
Handwritten numbering, not by the artist, on the recto, bottom left
70 in Arabic numerals from 1/70 to 70/70
30 in Roman numerals from I/XXX to XXX/XXX
Associazione Amici dei Musei di Como, Como
Edizioni l’Obliquo, Brescia; Grafica Sette Srl and Seven Media, Bagnolo Mella (Brescia)
The print was commissioned from the artist by the Associazione Amici dei Musei di Como as part of the initiatives promoted to celebrate the birth of Pliny the Elder two thousand years ago in Como.
Double-sided white card stock folder, with three interlocking flaps, closed format 51 x 37 cm; cover with titles in red and black (title, author, publisher, printer). Contains a title-page, the print, three sheets of text – respectively with a biographical profile of the artist, an entry for the print, and a note by the patron – and the colophon.
Includes information regarding the publisher, context of production, edition size, printing technique, type of paper, printer, and date of printing (September 2022). Numbering bottom centre.
• Biographical profile of the artist by Bettina Della Casa.
• Entry for the print by Bettina Della Casa.
• Note curated by the Associazione Amici dei Musei relative to the context of the realization of the edition, with an introductory quotation from Giacomo Leopardi on the theme of the anniversary.
Fragments of photographic reproductions of Mount Vesuvius erupting and details of the cover of the treatise Naturalis historia by Pliny the Elder are held down by a man's hand, which seems to want to avoid the imminent dispersal of the torn fragments.
If the images of the volcano recall the death of the Latin writer in 79 AD caused by inhaling Vesuvius' fumes, the details of the antique book recall his encyclopaedic masterpiece, which underlies modern natural history. The hand makes evident the irony of Pliny's fate, killed by a natural catastrophe that he himself had studied.
The same theme was formulated in a three-dimensional work, made during the same period (GPO-1140).
The original collage on which the print is based is documented in the online Catalogue Raisonné of the works on paper at number GPC-2224.
Pliny the Elder, Naturalis historia, 77-78 AD; reproduction from C. Plinii Secundi Naturalis historiæ (Rotterdam: Hackios, 1668), title page.
