A lecture by Pina Ragionieri
A lightness full of pathos characterizes this unusual biography made of glimpses and flashes of inspiration of Michelangelo Buonarroti, told by the guardian of his family home in Florence’s Via Ghibellina. Pina Ragionieri goes on the trail of the life of this great genius of boundless humanity, with a light step and thoughtful attention to the documents. By carefully selecting the essential moments of an incomparable career, she discretely looks beyond the threshold of Michelangelo’s private life with demure emotion, and allows the eyesight to touch the passions, seize the vulnerability and reflect the psychological fragility of the artist. Pina Ragionieri’s narrative is interspersed with excerpts from Michelangelo’s letters, glimpses of a daily diary of sort, where the arduous efforts of the sculptor-painter freely flow, rhymes that seal an intense and almost unspeakable existential suffering in a sacral hermeticism. All this gives us a Michelangelo seen up close in an enigmatic symbiosis, where the interpreter’s affections and memories effortlessly blend with the artist’s life.
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Embassy of Italy/Italian Cultural Institute
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PINA SERGI RAGIONIERI
Pina Sergi Ragionieri was born in Florence, where she still lives and works. After graduating at the University of Florence with Attilio Momigliano, she collaborated with journals like “il Ponte”, “Rinascita”, “Belfagor”, and national newspapers like “l’Unità” and “Paese Sera”. Between 1954 and 1975 she worked at Sansoni publishers as an editor where she also directed an authoritative series of Italian and foreign classics.
She translated works of the greatest English and American writers, among whom Henry Fielding, Herman Melville, and Henry James.
A member of the Academy of Art and Design, she has been the Director of the Casa Buonarroti Foundation in Florence since 1984. This institution, dedicated to study and research, is proud to be a crossroad for cultural exchanges. Ragionieri managed a thorough renovation of the Museum of Casa Buonarroti, where thanks to the study of ancient inventories and the historical records of the Buonarroti family, objects and works of art are now back in their original locations.
Among her publications: the Electa Guide of Casa Buonarroti, now in its third edition, Michelangelo: the art, the affections (2006), Michelangelo’s sketches from Casa Buonarroti (2000), Michelangelo between Florence and Rome, catalog of exhibition (2003), The Face of Michelangelo, catalog of exhibition (2008), Leonardo and Michelangelo. Masterpieces of graphics and Roman studies, in collaboration with Peter C. Marani, catalog of exhibition (2011).
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