Electa is publishing the catalogue for the “I Farnese. Architettura, Arte, Potere” exhibition in Parma, at the Complesso Monumentale della Pilotta between 18 March and 31 July 2022.

Given the number of contributions and its impressive iconographic apparatus, the catalogue is as monumental as the exhibition, containing three hundred images of works on display from public and private collections across Italy and Europe, illustrating the former Farnese picture gallery, home to the hundred most important paintings in the collection, including masterpieces by Raphael, Titian, Carracci, Correggio and El Greco. It also covers the famous Wunderkammer, which, with its exceptional gold, silver, amber, and rock crystal objects and its semi-precious stones, was brought back to life at the Pilotta. The catalogue dedicates ample space to the Farnese’s major architectural and urban planning works and local development, exploring the most significant designs commissioned from architects of the calibre of Vignola, Antonio da Sangallo il Giovane, Baldassarre Peruzzi, and Michelangelo.

Edited by Simone Verde, the catalogue features thirty-three essays by twenty-six art and architecture historians, professors, archaeologists and Casa Farnese experts. Reordering the exhibition, these critical contributions reconstruct the artistic, historical, and political context of the two-century history of this Italian dynasty, narrating a fascinating story that runs from the Farnese family’s patronage to court appointments and consultants, the variety of forms of patronage pursued, and the most important figures who assembled their pre-eminent collections of paintings, antiquities, numismatics, armour, glyptics and exotica, not forgetting the Teatro Farnese, a work that stands as a symbol of the entire dynastic project.
In addition to the exhibition catalogue (pp. 480, 550 ill., edited by Simone Verde), Electa is also publishing La scuola del mondo. Storie globali della collezione Farnese (edited by Simone Verde), a collection of essays by Italian and international scholars that explores various aspects of the Farnese family’s collecting from a critical global history perspective.