ROVIGO – An exceptional artist who has been giving prestige to Rovigo in the world for 500 years. To pay homage to him and to take stock of the studies concerning him, Lions Club Rovigo Host offers to citizens, Friday 3 May at 5pm at the Urban Digital Centera public event also held simultaneously in New York, which can be followed in person and in live streaming.
The meeting is included in May Rodigino, officially opening the 2024 edition and is organized in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute of New Yorkwhose president Fabio Finotti he recognized that “Xanto Avelli embodies our Renaissance in its best aspects. Classical, literary, religious and philosophical culture allies itself in him with the visual exploration of reality and the search for beauty. Also thanks to Xanto Avelli the decoration of ceramics can claim the rank not only of craftsmanship but of art. It is this small but great Italy that we want to make known abroad, and in particular in New York.”
Institutional greetings will follow Giorgio Lazzarinipresident of the Banca del Monte di Rovigo Foundation, and of Elena Busson, vice-president of the Rovigo Cultura Foundation. Over time, the two organizations have been active partners, who have believed in the cultural and identity value of promoting Xanto Avelli.
Ruggero Zambon, president of Lions Club Rovigo Host, will introduce from New York the work with “Xanto Avelli in Italy and in the world “to bring the works of the “figulo“which brought the name of Rovigo to the most authoritative Renaissance courts and to make the places that host them known”.
The dramatized reading will follow “Hero and Leandro of Museo Grammatico”, edited by Letizia Piva and Paolo Rossi, actors of Minimiteatri, to also theatrically highlight the myth that inspired Avelli to paint the only dish present today in Rovigo. It is a poem from the 5th century. to. C., which narrates the tragic love between the young Leander of the city of Abydos, a city overlooking the Hellespont, and the girl Hero, confined in a tower as a priestess of Aphrodite and residing in the city of Sesto, located on the opposite bank to Abydos .
“At the tip of the brush and pen: Xanto Avelli from Rovigo majolica maker and writer” this is the topic he will deal with later Flavia Micol Andreasiteacher, journalist and art historian: it will be a way to discover the eclectic talent of Avelli, a Renaissance man with a broad culture.
The art historian and essayist Valentina Lapierre will then talk about “Ceramic production in Ferrara at the time of Xanto Avelli”, in an excursus that will include the connections between Avelli and the places in which he operated. He will close the interventions Anna Cerboni Baiardiprofessor at the University of Urbino, who will present “Xantho maiolicaro at the court of Urbino”, to make it clear how hospitable and skilled the Urbino court was in recognizing and valorising talent.
The conclusions will be entrusted to Fabio Finotti and Isabella SgarbiFirst Vice President Lions Club Rovigo Host.
Francesco An educated humanist, he was a poet at the court of Francesco Maria I della Rovere, Duke of Urbino. Certainly he spent his youth in Rovigo and he began at an early age to try his hand in the workshops of the Venetian “bochaleri”. Soon he must have remained sensitive to the charm that came from the stories of the ceramic masters who passed through Ferrara, where it seems he spent a few years as a young man before passing for a brief experience in Faenza and, it is also presumed from the reading of the sonnets dedicated to Francesco Maria della Rovere, finally reach, a few years after 1516, Urbino rich in humanistic ferment and made famous by the great Raphael. In his work as a ceramist, Xanto Avelli demonstrates that he possesses a vast pictorial culture, also mediated by the engravings of Marcantonio Raimondi, Agostino Veneziano and Marco Dente, who had the merit of circulating the works of his great contemporaries, in which the figures of Raphael stand out , Mantegna and Parmigianino, together with sculptural references from the classical and humanistic era found in the precise references to the literary texts of Ovid, Virgil, Livy, Pompeo Trogo, Petrarca and Ariosto.
With the patronage of: Municipality of Rovigo, Fondazione Banca del Monte di Rovigo, Fondazione Rovigo Cultura, Accademia dei Concordi, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza, Minimitheatres
Free entry until all available places are available and possibility to participate remotely.
Registration in person New York: https://bit.ly/43Z9l0s
Registration in person in Rovigo: https://bit.ly/4aDC9hp
Direct streaming participation: no reservation required, viewing on the YouTube channel “Italian Cultural Institute New York Channel” https://www.youtube.com/@italculturny
For further information: www.lionsrovigo.it – www.iicnewyork.esteri.it
PLAN
Welcome greetings – from New York
FABIO FINOTTI Director of the Italian Cultural Institute of New York
film “XANTO AVELLI DA ROVIGO”
Coordination – from New York and Rovigo
FABIO FINOTTI Director of the Italian Cultural Institute of New York
ISABELLA SGARBI First Vice President Lions Club Rovigo Host
Institutional Greetings – from Rovigo
GIORGIO LAZZARINI President of the Banca del Monte di Rovigo Foundation
ELENA BUSSON Vice President of the Rovigo Cultura Foundation
Introduction – from New York
“XANTO AVELLI IN ITALY AND IN THE WORLD”
edited by RUGGERO ZAMBON President Lions Club Rovigo Host
Interventions – from Rovigo
“HERO AND LEANDER OF MUSEO GRAMMATICO” – Dramatized reading
curated by LETIZIA EM PIVA and PAOLO ROSSI Minimiteatri
“AT THE TIP OF THE BRUSH AND PEN: XANTO AVELLI DA ROVIGO, MAIOLICARO AND WRITER”
edited by FLAVIA MICOL ANDREASI Teacher, Journalist and Art Historian
“CERAMIC PRODUCTION IN FERRARA AT THE TIME OF XANTO AVELLI”
edited by VALENTINA LAPIERRE Art Historian and Essayist
“XANTO ‘MAIOLICARO’ AT THE COURT OF URBINO”
edited by ANNA CERBONI BAIARDI Associate professor at the University of Urbino
Conclusions – from New York and Rovigo
FABIO FINOTTI Director of the Italian Cultural Institute of New York
ISABELLA SGARBI First Vice President Lions Club Rovigo Host
Promoted by: Lions Club Rovigo Host
In collaboration with: Italian Cultural Institute of New York
Event inserted in: May Rodigino 2024
Date: May 3, 2024
Time: 11.00 am New York, 5.00 pm Rovigo
Locations: New York – Italian Cultural Institute, 686 Park Ave
Rovigo – Urban Digital Center Conference Room, Via Badaloni 2
Live streaming: Italian Cultural Institute New York YouTube channel
