An Exhibition Exploring Latin Classics and Artist’s Books from Dürer to Picasso

Titled Per imagines. Latin Classics and Artist’s Books from Dürer to Picasso, the exhibition is open until 5 October at the Museo Civico Medievale (Via Manzoni 4, Bologna), curated by Professors Francesco Citti and Daniele Pellacani. Organised by the Department of Classical Philology and Italian Studies (FICLIT) and the Centre for the Study of the Classical Tradition at the University of Bologna, in collaboration with the Bologna University Library (BUB) and Musei Civici d’Arte Antica/Museo Medievale di Bologna (Civic Museums of Ancient Art/Medieval Museum of Bologna), the aim is to demonstrate how the great works of Latin literature have served as essential models in the development of European literature and art. To do so, the exhibition takes a largely unexplored perspective: the contemporary artist’s book, seen as a privileged site for the encounter between text and image, and thus a material space for the interaction between literature and art, between word and sign.

The exhibition features a curated selection of works generously loaned by the Biblioteca di Busseto of the Cariparma Foundation (Corrado Mingardi donation), the Bologna University Library (BUB), and numerous artists and private collectors. It offers a transmedial journey across different periods and artistic styles of contemporary art, showcasing how diverse artistic personalities have reinterpreted and revitalised classical models, transforming verbal texts into visual codes.

Visitors can admire key works such as Max Klinger's symbolist Apuleius (Apuleius. Amor und Psyche, 1881) and Pablo Picasso’s Ovidian Metamorphoses (Ovide. Les Métamorphoses, 1931), a landmark in how the modern artist’s book engages with classical sources. Picasso’s experiment would go on to influence other significant works, such as Giacomo Manzù’s Georgics (Le Georgiche di Virgilio, 1948) and Enrico Baj’s De rerum natura (1958), though with different outcomes.

To offer a broader and more nuanced view of how artists approach Latin literature, the exhibition includes books spanning various styles and periods—from Aristide Maillol’s Horace and Virgil (Les Éclogues de Virgile, 1926; Odes d’Horace, 1939), to Filippo De Pisis’s Catullus (I Carmi di Catullo, 1945), and Giulia Napoleone’s Lucretius (NERO, 2014). Also featured are works where the classical text is reimagined through a modern literary lens, such as Jacques Villon’s Virgil–Valéry (Paul Valéry. Les Bucoliques de Virgile, 1953) and Fausto Melotti’s Propertius–Pound (Ezra Pound. Homage to Sextus Propertius, 1976).

To enrich and deepen the visitor experience, the exhibition places contemporary artist’s books alongside rare, illustrated editions of Latin classics, such as Albrecht Dürer’s Terence. Dürer’s drawings were only engraved and printed in 1971 thanks to the initiative of Officina Bodoni, in three volumes of the Andria, accompanied respectively by the translations of Machiavelli, Bernard, and Mendelssohn Bartholdy. This deliberate juxtaposition is designed to highlight both continuity and contrast in the centuries-long dialogue between literary texts and artistic representation.