The article reconsiders the genesis of Gustave Moreau’s Prométhée exposed at 1869 Paris Salon, focusing especially on its visual and literary sources from Antiquity to Renaissance Art. A"er a strong education in classics, Moreau traveled to Italy and had the chance to deepen his knowledge and understanding of Art History. Since then, as for his Prométhée, quotations from many celebrated masterpieces (from the I century B.C. Sigillo di Nerone in the Museo Borbonico, Naples, to the early 16th century Raphael’s ceiling frescoes in the Vatican) qualify his work of new interpretations: classical literature, Renaissance culture and Neo-Platonist theory melt with the concern for the role and the duty of the artist in his time, between the end of the Second Empire, the Franco-Prussian armistice and the Paris Commune. In Moreau’s view this is how history painting turns out epic and political and religious commitment enhance present with a neo-humanistic attitude.

From the Angel of the Brayda Tomb, still full of Giulio Monteverdian echoes, between 1888 and 1890, how does Leonardo Bistolfi get to the Pansa Sphinx for the cemetery of Cuneo? His sculpture delves into a world of evocations and presences, of the sublime herea"er and of the absence of the concept of death as inherited by positivism, in favour of the spiritualist idea. The article explores some of the fundamental material that, in context, had allowed the artist to arrive at a powerful synthesis of the ‘new symbols’ of the sculptural language at the turn of the 20th century. On the backdrop of Bistolfi's symbolist there are his relations with the Lombroso family, with Cesare, the scholar of metaphysical themes, and with his daughter Paola. Hers is the unpublished manuscript, written on the occasion of the sculptor’s solo at the 1905 Venice Biennale, extracts from which are analysed. Trough pages of notebooks, hitherto unknown, within the first decade of ’900, one may observe the advent of the creative moment when a reality blended with images and sensations tends to assume form, revealing the crucible of a continually transforming vision that makes a multiplicity of stimuli interact: from the artistic archetypes of the past to debts owed to the contemporary quest of secessionists.

Designing Ibsen’s Rosmersholm at the Teatro della Pergola brought Edward Gordon Craig to Flor-ence at the end of 1906. Monthslater, the English stage designer,writer, publisher, etcher and en-graver returned to live in the city where he produced a magazine of rare elegance !e Mask (1908- 1929). In it Craig combined in the magazine his progressive thinking about the theatre and his refined wood engraving, both passions renewed by Florence. At the Arena Goldoni – his theatre-workshop-studio-atelier – he ‘patented’ his famous screens, revived his special production of bookplates, and learned to carve with Stephen Haweis, an English artist who had studied in Paris with Mucha and Carrière. Craig’s Florentine «good deal of etching» produced two portfolios between 1907 and early 1908, «connected with his dream of an Ideal !eatre». One of his «most serious works», the first precious copy of the first portfolio, is held in Florence, acquired by that particular bibliophile, Bernard Berenson.

The author reexamines Fortunato Depero’s marionnette show Balli plastici, which was performed in April 1918 on the Teatro dei Piccoli’s stage in Rome. The show is analysed in the context of the futurist artist’s collaboration with Diaghilev and on the basis of new documentary evidence. This enables light to be shed on some aspects of the Balli plastici such as Gilbert Clavel’s coreographic contribution, the musical accompaniment or the allusions conjured up in the plot. The critical appraisal of this theatrical event at the time of its premiere is also examined with particular empha- sis on Edward Gordon Craig’s negative remarks.

The essay analyzes the photomontages made by Vinicio Paladini since 1926, when he founded the Immaginismo with Umberto Barbaro and others. This avant-garde movement, aimed to a synthesis of painting, theatre and cinema, flourished in the experimental milieu of the Teatro degli Indipendenti and the Casa d’Arte, both directed by Anton Giulio Bragaglia. Because of its fragmentary structure and narrative character, the imaginists’ photomontage share some aspects with Dadaism, Surrealism and also with de Chirico’s Metafisica, wellknown to Paladini. Trough the examination of contemporary periodicals Schiaffini contextualises his photomontages within the contemporary cultural debate on photography, literature and film. Focusing on Paladini’s close relationship with Barbaro, writer,director and author of important essays on cinema, she proposes new interpretations of his ideas and some iconographical sources for his work.

The reception of the Belvedere Mercury (Florence, U

The use of fireworks in the religious and profane celebrations held in Seville in the 17th century is still a matter little discussed by the historians of Art, surely because of the ephemeral character of this artistic manifestation. The article provides abundant novel documentation from the archive of the Cathedral of Seville. The two authors analyse the different typologies of these jewels roaring, which are distinguished by the «castles of fires» and «machines». Along with these types we can note the masters who concocted them and the celebrations which occurred. Among them highlighting the feast celebrated, in 1671, for the canonization of the patron of the city, the king Saint Ferdinand and also we can demonstrated the importance of the Seville Cathedral as a theat-er chosen for firework shows, which, once again, in the period examined, emerged as a symbol of the cultural identity of the capital of Andalucia.