A photo exhibition to investigate sacred Padua

The exhibition spaces of the Anthonian Museum at the Basilica of St. Anthony of Padua will host the exhibition Padua Sacred from October 4 to November 10, 2019. Art architecture, religiosity and popular devotion in the photographic image, 1850-1931.

The exhibition aims to highlight in the photographic shots the closeness to the sacred through places, objects, rituals and people. Visitors will be able to admire rare original images from public and private collections taken by great protagonists in the history of Italian photography, such as Domenico Bresolin, Giacomo Caneva, Antonio Sorgato, Carlo Naya, Luigi Borlinetto, the Alinari brothers, Costante Agostini, Francesco Bonaldi, Antonio Perini, Pietro Poppi, Arturo Pospisil, Vito Malaguti and Luigi Fiorentini.

“In these eighty years, photography has proved to be an indispensable tool of artistic research and historical documentation, leaving to our contemporaries the important role of archiving, managing and studying all the image material laboriously (and fortunately) deposited in public and private archives. It is up to us to understand how much only a careful critical analysis of all that has been can guarantee the preservation of our identity and, in the certainty of our improving ourselves, be able to ensure a serene and fruitful future destiny,” commented Giuseppe Vanzella, curator of the exhibition.

"This exhibition is the ideal continuation of the path traced by the previous exhibitions The Saint as He Was and Vincenzo Coronelli in the Collections of the Pontifical Antoniana Library, both organized by the Venerable Ark of St. Anthony. After dealing with and enhancing the ancient art of printing and the fascinating art of engraving, Padua Sacred starts again where the exhibition The Saint as He Was had stopped, that is, from the middle of the 19th century and from this new art, photography precisely, which in some respects complements and partly replaces the art of engraving. The subjective gaze of the engraving artist gives way to the objective and documentary vision of the photographic tool and the sensitivity of the photographer who transforms it into art," added the exhibition coordinator, Alessandro Borgato.

The exhibition is curated by collector and scholar of the history of photography, Giuseppe Vanzella, and coordinated by Alessandro Borgato, consultant of the Venerable Ark of St. Anthony, curator of art collections and consultant for the Pontifical Antoniana Library. Organized by the Venerable Ark of St. Anthony in collaboration with the Pontifical Basilica of St. Anthony, the Anthonian Museum and under the patronage of the City of Padua, it is being held as part of Photo Open Up, International Festival of Photography.

For info: www.arcadelsanto.org

Free admission

Image: Carlo Naya, The Saint seen from the Botanical Garden (c. 1865)

A photo exhibition to investigate sacred Padua

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