LIBRO: Written in Water: The Ephemeral Life of the Classics in Art; Rochelle Gurstein 
When in Rome, il Cimitero acattolico (Non-Catholic Cemetary), still often referred to as il Cimitero Protestante, or il Cimitero degli inglesi or, poetically, as il Cimitero degli artisti e dei poeti, is a truly wonderful place to visit. Located right beside la Piramide Cestia, it's un'oasi di pace amid the hustle and bustle of Rome, and houses the tombs, amongst the many, of Antonio Gramsci, Andrea Camilleri (author of the Commissario Montalbano  crime novels), the poet Shelly, and of John Keats, whose tombstone bears the most beautiful of epigraphs: "Here lies one whose name was writ in water". Rochelle Gurstein, alluding to Keat's epigraph, explores how the concept of "classic" in art, seemingly immortal and undisputed, is, perhaps, everything but:

Before the middle of the nineteenth century, Michelangelo's most acclaimed sculpture was not his endlessly reproduced David, but his now-neglected Moses in Rome. Equally disorienting, Leonardo was rarely mentioned by art writers, and Michelangelo's reputation waxed and waned. The most revered Renais-sance artist was instead a painter for whom few people today feel anything at all, Raphael. And this stunning shuftling of reputations extended to entire schools as well: the early Italian Renaissance painters (Giotto, Masaccio, Sandro Botticelli, Piero della Francesca, Andrea Mantegna, to name a few), so adored by modern art lovers, had fallen into oblivion for centuries, only to be rediscovered and given a second life by ardent admirers in the nineteenth century. But nothing was more unnerving to me than to learn that an entire class of art - Greco-Roman sculpture - had, after close to four hundred years of the most passionate adulation, simply vanished from the modern imagina-tion. To my great dismay, what I believed was written in stone was actually written in water.

Gurstein's book promises to be utterly fascinating e non vediamo l'ora di leggerlo (we can't wait to read it)! Intanto, ascoltiamoci un'intervista con l'autrice, and, if you'd like to purchase the book, you'll find it in stock at Abbey's. (Febbraio, 2025)