Franco Maria Ricci’s first title, which he published in 1963, was a work of writing in the literal sense of the term: Giambattista Bodoni’s Manuale Tipograﬁco. Bodoni, a creator of refined typefaces prized for their elegance and legibility, had opened a printing house in 1790.

History

eruption-of-vesuvius-august-8-1779_met-museum_public-domain

Eruption-of-Vesuvius,-August-8,-1779_MET-Museum_Public-Domain

The dimension of travel predisposes one to observe the surrounding landscape and nature in general. From this came the aesthetics of the sublime theorized by the Scottish philosopher Edmund Burke and then elaborated by Friedrich Schiller as the exaltation of the terrible grandeur of natural settings that “snatch his [man’s] mind away from the narrow sphere of the real and the oppressive imprisonment of physical life”.
The Grand Tourist was inclined to contemplate nature as eternal power, and the landscape, which offered the human mind an opportunity to measure itself with the incommensurable grandeur of nature, with the looming threat of its elements and the consequent perception of human fragility, acquired a particular fascination that found representation in various art forms.

The most effective representations of the sublime are perhaps the pictorial ones, in which, thanks to the choice of peculiar subjects and the combinations of colours, nature surrounds and confers solemnity on the ruins, often portrayed beneath dark skies. The artist observed natural phenomena such as earthquakes, floods and eruptions and then rendered them on the canvas, trying to capture their impetuous and emotion-stirring appeal.
Relating to these expressions, though of human origin, were the effects produced in the mind by large bonfires or exploding fireworks, which lit up the night and stood out against the darkness.

Sublime visions

hubert-robert_la-grotta-di-posillipo_da-libro

Hubert Robert_La grotta di Posillipo_DA LIBRO

ippolito-caffi_carnevale-a-roma_da-libro

Ippolito Caffi_Carnevale a Roma_DA LIBRO

ippolito-caffi_il-colosseo-di-notte-circondato-dalla-folla_da-libro

Ippolito Caffi_Il Colosseo di notte circondato dalla folla_DA LIBRO

the-girandola-at-the-castel-santangelo-designed-and-hand-colored-by-louis-jean-desprez-french-etched-by-francesco-piranesi-italian_met_public-domain

The-Girandola-at-the-Castel-Sant'Angelo-Designed-and-hand-colored-by-Louis-Jean-Desprez-French-Etched-by-Francesco-Piranesi-Italian_MET_Public-Domain

2013-155

2013.155