SCIENTIFIC AND ARTISTIC COLLEGE
JOSEPH BELLANTONIO
Born in 1945 and resident in Rome since 1953, he considers himself a Citizen of the World. He has extensive experience in banking at Banca Commerciale Italiana and in the financial and insurance sectors at Banca Fideuram and SanPaolo Invest. His basic training as an accountant and commercial expert was furthered by completing a degree in Banking and Insurance Sciences, which earned him international recognition (a HC degree in Community Law awarded by the ASCE in Strasbourg). He also holds diplomas in psychology and English language courses in Aberdeen. He has participated in important seminars and study meetings in Italy, Switzerland, and the UK, which have helped him update his banking and insurance consulting profession and also help him acquire new skills in recruiting, selecting, and training staff. An expert in corporate communications and training, he coordinated the creation of training offices at two financial and real estate groups: Capital Money and Open Group. In both, he defined texts and procedures for the various operational levels. Passionate about culture, he counts among his passions everything that expresses art. A registered journalist for many years, he was the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the periodical 'Dialoghi e Prospettive', collaborating with numerous publications with his own articles on contemporary culture, politics, art, and historical research related to ancient initiatory-esoteric systems. A freelance journalist, as an art enthusiast and expert, in 2015 he founded MIRA—International Movement for a Renewal in Art—and—in 2016, together with artist and art entrepreneur Monica Melani and artist Rosanna Della Valle—the 'Manifesto for Art' (aimed at promoting artists by helping them exhibit freely and free of charge) and 'i-Dee nell'Arte' (a movement promoting female expression in art). This personal state of mind has placed him in a position to cross paths with artist and storyteller Elisabetta Piccirillo and art critic Massimiliano Porro, and from there with Lina Bavaro and Nicola Cea, who aim to perpetuate and honor the memory of their son, artist Michele Cea, through the eponymous Foundation. His dream is to contribute to the creation of an International Art Citadel, which can host artists from around the world on a rotating basis, becoming a renowned showcase in this particular segment.
MICHELE FRANCO
was born in 1957. A graphic designer, I have specialized in typeface design, lettering, and expressive calligraphy, starting with the main historical Western alphabets. Currently active in film and TV acting, I have taught BER BenEssere Recitativo acting courses for eleven years. I have organized and presented 15 local film festivals, hosted cultural and art events, and art-themed TV programs. I write reviews for painters and sculptors. Currently engaged in the artistic direction of two painting and sculpture exhibitions in the Turin area and an international short film festival. Since 2018, I have been the Turin director of the important Chivasso-based association L'Officina Culturale, and was officially elected as the new Gianduia a few weeks ago.
NUCCIO MULA
Born in Agrigento on March 31, 1956, resident in Agrigento, Classical High School Diploma with 60/60, Master's Degree in Visual Arts and Disciplines of the Arts and Entertainment with 110/110 cum laude, he began teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts as early as 1975, chairs of Theory and Method of the Mass Media and Contemporary Italian and International Literature; and since 2004, at the Academy of Fine Arts "Michelangelo" in Agrigento, he has taught Theory and Method of the Mass Media, History of the Media, Philosophy of the Image, Theory of Perception and Psychology of Form, Phenomenology of Contemporary Arts (in the undergraduate courses) as well as Phenomenology of the Image and Philosophy of Art (in the two-year specialization course and in the Qualifying Courses). In June 2019, he will celebrate 50 years of cultural activity. A writer and journalist since 1969 (at the age of thirteen), poet, essayist, critic, cultural activist, speaker, and multimedia publishing designer, Nuccio Mula is President of the Agrigento Writers and Artists Association, which he founded. A few years ago, he was also admitted to the prestigious National Order of Authors and Writers, the second from Agrigento after Luigi Pirandello (who was also its President). He is also a member of the National Writers' Union and the Free Italian Writers' Union, and has been, for several years now, the official representative of the Michelangelo Academy of Fine Arts in Agrigento at the authoritative Italian Association of Public and Institutional Communication. He has published six collections of poems, adaptations of Pirandello's plays, monothematic poems on Empedocles, scripts of "theatrum philosophicum," commentaries on multimedia works, including computer-based ones, and volumes of paremiology and linguistics dedicated to Sicily. He has also published more than three hundred essays on art criticism, sociology, literary criticism, mass media studies and communication in general, ethics and visual culture, as well as a thousand articles in Italian and foreign newspapers and periodicals as a commentator, editorialist, critic, and observer of cultural and social events and facts. As an international literary and art critic, he has always been interested in and still works with many authors and artists, including those on a global level, promoting their value with prefaces, contributions, and essays in international philosophy and art catalogs and magazines, such as the Dutch “Le petit cuistre,” the organ of the Neo-Enlightenment Movement “Le circle d'Holbach,” and “La camera dello scirocco,” the periodical of the “Michelangelo” Academy of Fine Arts. He has received numerous prestigious Italian and foreign awards: among others, the title of Knight of Grace of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem (at just 32 years of age), the Telamone International Prize for Literature (1994), the Sikelé Prize for Literary and Artistic Criticism (2000), the National “Sipario d'Oro” Prize for criticism and essay writing (2006), the “Ignazio Buttitta” Prize for criticism and essay writing (2006), the AICS National “Salvatore Cottone” Prize for literature (2007), the International “Castello di Pietrarossa” Prize for literature and essay writing (2008), the International “Il Pennino d'Oro” Prize for criticism and essay writing (2011). In 2002 he was named “Benemerito della Cultura Italiana” by the International Institute of Poetry and History of European Poetics in Rome; In 2003, he founded the "Athenaeum Internazionale degli Empedoclei – Higher Institute of University Culture and Philosophical Studies," appointing the Honorary Rector Professor Peter Kingsley, a leading contemporary scholar of Empedocles and the Pre-Socratics. Several of his studies have been published by the University of Toulouse and the University of Pennsylvania. He is also a member of the Sicilian Center for Prehistoric and Protohistoric Studies and of numerous Italian and foreign academies, including the Tiberina Academy, the Constantinian Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts in Rome, the International Academy of Modern Art in Rome, and the Vatican International Academy "Gentium Pro Pace." He is also one of the very few Italians to have been invited, due to his clear reputation, to join various internationally prestigious associations, such as MENSA International, the PEN Club, and two highly respected professional associations affiliated with UNESCO, the International Association of Literary Critics and the International Association of Art Critics. He has also been a member of the Italian Association of University Professors for many years. A lecturer in Phenomenology of the Image at the PAS Qualifying Courses, he has been Director of the Encyclopedia of Italian Art since 2009, with particular reference to the web section, and a member of its Scientific Committee. He also founded the International “Marta Abba” Award for Best Theatre Actress, the only award in the world he created on June 24, 2008, on the twentieth anniversary of the death of Pirandello's sublime Muse; the International “Zeusi” Award for the Visual Arts; and the International “Trìskeles” Award for the Standard-Bearers of Sicilian Culture in the World. Between 2016 and 2017 he was awarded two honorary degrees (in Literature and Philology and in Psychology and Communication Sciences) by a major Swiss university, which also appointed him a member of the Academic Council.
SALVATORE MORGANTE
Salvatore Morgante, born in Agrigento in 1976, is a visual artist, author, art director, and creative consultant. For over twenty-five years, he has worked in the fields of communications, graphics, and creative direction, collaborating with companies, institutions, and Italian-made entities in the fields of production, art, events, and film. He also pursues multidisciplinary artistic research that encompasses painting, photography, textures, music, writing, and visual communication.
Graduated in 2018 in Visual and Performing Arts at the “Michelangelo” Academy of Fine Arts in Agrigento with 110/110 cum laude, special mention and publication dignity, he dedicated his thesis to the life and work of Michele Cea, an artist to whom he has linked an important path of study and research that began after winning the Michele Cea Prize in 2016.From this work came the volume Michele Cea. My art? Just a cry. And everyone can make the sound they want!,published in 2019 by Editoriale Giorgio Mondadori, of which Morgante is the author and curator of the graphic design. His works have also been published in the Catalogues of Modern Art no. 54 and no. 55 of the same publishing house.
She subsequently earned a Master's Degree in Visual and Performing Arts, majoring in Painting, again with 110/110 cum laude, special mention, and publication honors, with her thesis, " Il Soffio Arcano. Dall'Estruso all'Ecstasy – Il processo creativa tra Spiritualità, Esotericismo e Sciamanesimo," dedicated to creative processes and the relationships between art, symbolism, and the spiritual dimension.
He is part of the Metadimensionalism. His pictorial research, defined as "Material-Emotional Abstraction," develops through a gestural and material practice that combines traditional techniques, pigments, earths, sands, cement, industrial paints, and unconventional materials, in a constant investigation of color, perception, image, and internal states.
LUCIA ROSA PASTORE
After obtaining a high school diploma in classical studies (60/60), a degree in literature (110/110 cum laude) and a specialization in computerized management of archaeological and artistic heritage, Lucia Rosa Pastore worked (1988-1990) at the Bari branch of the Agorà consortium – a concessionaire of the Ministry for Cultural and Environmental Heritage in the computerized research and cataloguing project on the theme of the historic squares of southern and insular (art. 15 of the financial law n. 41/86, establishing the Cultural Deposits) – under the direction, in his area of responsibility, of Prof. Enrico Guidoni, holder of the chair of History of the City at the Faculty of Architecture, La Sapienza University of Rome. On the occasion of the seminar organized in Rome by Prof. Guidoni on the theme of Sculpture in the squares , she was chosen by him, the only one for Puglia, to publish in the magazine < The monument to the martyrs of 1799 in Altamura (1990). At the end of this work experience he obtained the qualification of Cultural Heritage Operator. He subsequently worked, on a permanent contract, curating the art section at the De Gemmis – Santa Teresa dei Maschi Metropolitan Library in Bari. He has always collaborated with the “Corrado Giaquinto” Metropolitan Art Gallery in Bari, drafting contributions and catalogue entries for exhibitions organised by this institution; examples include Around Corrado Giaquinto. Acquisitions – Donations – Restorations 1993-2004 (2004-2005); Apulian Painters between the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries in the Collections of the Provincial Art Gallery of Bari (October 2006); Gaetano Stella and Apulian 'chamber' sculpture in the first half of the Twentieth Century (2008–2009); The Seductions of Painting. Riccardo Tota 1899-1998 (2012–2013); People. Portraits of Men, Women, and Children (1850–1950) from Public and Private Collections in Puglia (2014–2015); Genius loci. Reflections of Local Identity in Fifty Apulian Artists, Past and Present (2016–2017). In particular, for the Pinacoteca Bari, he compiled approximately ninety entries for the general catalogue of nineteenth- and twentieth-century works entitled The Provincial Art Gallery of Bari II. Works of the Nineteenth and First Half of the Twentieth Century (Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, Rome 2005). She is the author of numerous essays and monographs on 19th- and 20th-century Southern Italian art, published by leading national publishers, including Electa (e.g., the critical biographies for La pittura in Italia. Il Novecento/1, edited by C. Pirovano, vol. II, Milan 1992), Marsilio, Guerini, Biblos, Gruppo editoriale L'Espresso, Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, and De Agostini (in this regard, noteworthy is the editing of all the entries on 19th-century Apulian painters for the dictionary of artists in the work Pittori & Pittura dell'Ottocento italiano, Novara 1997-1999). With the volume Il sacro nell'arte di Luigi Russo (Adda, Bari 2003), she won the 17th edition of the “Conversano Marangelli” prize. She has been appointed, in the context of legal proceedings before the Court, to carry out appraisals of works of art. She currently works, always on a permanent basis, for the municipal administration of Trani, classified with the title of "Director instructor specializing in cultural, historical-artistic and library activities". Thanks to consolidated experience gained in the museum field (she was, among other things, part of the scientific commission, chaired by Michele D'Elia, for the reorganization of the Pinacoteca De Napoli in Terlizzi), she was the architect, with regard to the scientific aspect, of the creation of the Palazzo delle Arti “Beltrani” – Pinacoteca “Ivo Scaringi” in Trani (inauguration: December 2009), a multi-purpose municipal institution. Also at Palazzo Beltrani, she conceived, set up and curated numerous exhibitions and organized conferences and study days, including The Risorgimento in art, music, cinema (2011); Nie wieder Krieg (Never again war) a hundred years after the Great War (2014-2015); The Myth of Dante in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries in the Figurative Arts, Music and Cinema (2015). Having obtained a specialization in General and Museum Education from the University of Roma Tre, he has conceived and implemented complex project strategies with educational purposes. The cornerstone of these strategies, Self-Portrait and the Search for One's Identity, carried out at Palazzo Beltrani, has also resulted in a publication (Bari, Adda 2013) and in the learning path Lesson at the Museum , which has received gratifying appreciation from the National Institute of Documentation, Innovation and Research in Florence and the Management Authorities of the MIUR. A summary of these activities is in his contribution entitled Palazzo delle Arti “Beltrani” – Pinacoteca “Ivo Scaringi”. Guiding principles, functions and design strategies four years after its establishment, in Reflections from Puglia, edited by O. Albano (vol. IV, Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso, Rome 2014). Her most recent works include the volume Homage to Onofrio Martinelli (Adda, Bari 2015). She is currently curating, and editing the catalogue (Bari, Adda), an exhibition on the sculptor Antonio Bassi (Bari, Civic Museum).
MASSIMILIANO PORRO,
born in 1977, graduated in Modern Literature with a focus on art history from the Catholic University of Milan, where I also earned a teaching qualification and a Master's Degree in Art History and Archaeology. I taught Art History at the Luini Art School in Cantù. I currently teach Modern Art History at the Galli Academy – IED in Como, teaching Painting, Fashion, Design Supplies, Medieval Art History, and Modern Art History in the Restoration program. I contribute to cultural magazines (Canturium, Concordia) and news websites. I also organize and present painting and sculpture exhibitions nationwide.
CRISTIANO ROCCHIO
I was born in the province of Padua in 1971. I graduated in Philosophy in 2000 with a thesis on ancient rhetoric from the University of Padua. I continued my studies in rhetoric and am completing my doctoral thesis on Erasmus of Rotterdam and Torquato Tasso, which I will defend at the University of Tübingen in Germany. Last year I taught Italian and History at a high school in Cittadella, in the province of Padua, and I am currently a support teacher at the Bernardi vocational school in Padua. The cultural fields I have studied include rhetoric, literature, philosophy, theology, history (especially modern history), and art history (especially the manifestos of twentieth-century avant-garde art and contemporary cultural movements). My publications include a couple of monographs, a couple of translations, several articles, and some reflections on the works of Michele Cea for his catalog. In the field of psychology, I am developing the topic "Art and the Virtual" with several psychotherapists, particularly the potential contribution of individual creativity in solving psychological problems. I regularly collaborate with a group of historians, a group of philologists, and a group of transhumanists. I have participated in several conferences in Italy and abroad.
ENZO VARRICCHIO
Writer: his novel “That Summer Before the End of the World” (ed. G. Laterza 2011), was defined as “A prophetic book” by the prestigious The Wall Street Journal (http://blogs.wsj.com/source/2011/11/23/a-low-tax-euromed-union-with-no-red-tape-read-all-about-it/ ). He directs the modern fiction series “I MediTerranei” for the G. Laterza publishing house of Bari. Art advisor and expert appraiser of works of art, photography, antiquities and printed matter at the Chambers of Commerce and the Courts. Former director of the “Artoteca Vallisa” art gallery in Bari. A freelance journalist, registered with the register of journalists and publicists of Puglia since 1999, he is the author of hundreds of articles on museology, art criticism and art law. He contributes to the national newspapers IL DUBBIO and IL CORRIERE NAZIONALE, and to the magazine NUOVA MUSICOLOGIA. He is the founder and honorary president of the Center for Studies on the Law of the Arts, Tourism and Landscape (www.dirittodellearti.it , an organization founded in 2004, dedicated to the study and promotion of artistic and environmental heritage). He appears on Wikipedia under the entry "museum law." He is a cassation lawyer, an expert in copyright and cultural heritage, and an honorary judge at the Court of Trani. He is a trainer at the Scuola Superiore della Magistratura (Higher School of the Judiciary) and a lecturer in legal disciplines at the MIUR (Ministry of Education, University and Research).
Gaetano Centrone,
a graduate of Modern Literature, holds a Master's degree in Contemporary Italian Studies from University College London. From 2008 to 2010, he was a Lecturer of Italian at the University of Michigan (USA). He is a contemporary art critic with a particular interest in interdisciplinarity, sculpture, public art, and artistic research in the Balkan and Mediterranean countries. He has curated international exhibitions in Italy, Albania, and Kosovo. He currently holds the chair of Contemporary Art History at the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts in Turin. Professor of Art History, Albertina Academy of Fine Arts in Turin
GIANLUCA VENEZIANI
Gianluca Veneziani has been working as a living being (what Pavese, in fact, called the "profession of living") for 40 years and as a journalist for 20. His career path has been a circular motion: after starting at a local newspaper and then at "La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno" in his beloved Puglia, he moved to Milan where he became a professional journalist and worked for ten years at the daily newspaper Libero. Before winning a Rai competition and returning to Puglia, where he now works as an editor for TgR.
A lover of beauty in all its forms, he takes life seriously but never too seriously, deeply convinced that lightheartedness is the key to elevating the soul and soaring. And that this earthly passage is just a trailer for the wonderful film that awaits us later.
