Opera viva
L’Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore: gli uomini e la storia

 

10% of the proceeds from the sale of the catalogue will be devolved to Fondazione Ospedale Pediatrico Meyer ONLUS.

Photos by Michele Pecchioli
Text by Beatrice Santini

As everyone knows, the bottom part of the hull is situated below the waterline. Nautical enthusiasts like myself also know that this part is referred to as “quick-work” (as opposed to the “dead-work” above the waterline), because its volume generates consistent upward thrusts in proportion to the water it displaces while the ship is in motion. Although hidden from sight beneath the surface of the water, it is perhaps the most important part of the vessel, determining both its balance and its speed.

The Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore plays a similar role, creating an almost instinctive link.

Arnolfo di Cambio, Giotto di Bondone, Andrea Pisano, Francesco Talenti, Luca della Robbia, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Filippo Brunelleschi, Donatello, Michelangelo Buonarroti: their names , together with those of numerous other great artists, are sculpted in marble along the long entrance corridor to the new Museo dell’Opera del Duomo. Countless illustrious names have revolutionized human thinking and discovered in themselves the concept of beauty. Behind these illustrious men are thirty generations of labourers, stonemasons, archivists, supervisors, surveyors and architects, restorers, secretaries and administrators, electricians and carpenters, bricklayers, decorators and many others, whose work behind the scenes, unrecorded by the history, has brought this wonder of creation to life, preserving it and allowing it to speak to the entire world. artists, restorers, clerical workers and keepers – the workforce, in the broadest sense of the term – become the protagonists of more than 260,000 days of history, providing the basis for gallery of portraits of people captured in their place of work.

Eur 25,00

Weight 1,7 kg
Dimensions 23 × 31 cm
Pages

216

Binding

Paperback

Illustrations

100 in colour

Language

Italian/English

ISBN

978-88-7461-291-8