A conversation with Stella Santacatterina, published by THIRD TEXT, third world perspectives on contemporary art & and culture.

42 SPRING 1998. Founding editor: Rasheed Araeen - editor: Jean Fisher.

Harmonic Convergences. Pag. 39 - 46.

 Barbara Zolezzi and Elisabetta De Pieri are two writers based in Venice who work closely together on the develpment of ideas, content and structure to produce collaborative novels and fables. Whilst Barbara Zolezzi is oriented towards western philosophy and culture, Elisabetta De Pieri has long benn envolved in the East. Indeed, theirs is a collaboration that reflects the position of Venice itself as a historical meeting-point of two civilisations, East and West.

Moreover both authors are born under the sign of Libra, their joint work emerges from a balance between them; their projects begin by discussion of idea and content, defeloping first the image which then becomes translated into text that the authors physically write together.

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Venetian painting, a concept of art as a liaison between past and present is at the centre of the historical novels by the two writwers. In the novel l’Avogador, set in Venice in the 1500s in the middleof Mannerism, one of the main characters of the political and cultural plot of that time is in fact the artist Paolo Caliari “Veronese” (1528-1588). The artist is here painted in a different fashion from the traditional one, with his passion, his impulsive temper and his strong love of painting felt as individual space for the philosophical expression of a world vision. We never find the artist subjugated to the political power of the commissioning authority. The artist is drawn in moments of quotidian life, as a very passionate and Knowledgeable man, who loved beauty in any aspect, a great collector of precious cameos, very committed to the events of his time, capable of interpreting the reality around him with originality. From the writers’ pen, Veronese emerges as one of the most revolutionary and innovative artistic personalities of all times.

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Stella Santacatterina: Why did you choose the 1500s rather than another period? Why Veronese rather than Titian or any other artist of that time?

Barbara Zolezzi and Elisabetta De Pieri: First of all we chose this time because it was a moment of great artistic and cultural flowering throughout Italy and in Venice in particular, where there was a very rich and perfect metaphor to represent the situation of today. As yoy know, Venice was the only city in Europe where the Pope’s power was kept under control by the Serenissima. The Venetian people, even if they had a deep religious sense, didn’t like to be patronised by the Pope. We can say, in fact, that the Serenissima was the only example of secular government at the time. On the contrary, other European cities were patronised by the Vatican with the approval of the local establishment.

 Concerning Veronese, first of all he is less known than Titian; but, above all, he is our favourite artist and we are fascinated by the luminosity of his work, by his colur and above all by his sense of freedom and sense of quotidian reality. In fact he is the only artist at the time working in Venice who was taken to Court (The Court of the Inquisition).

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SS: In another book you chose a character who lived in a different time and is very different from the magistrate: The Count of Cagliostro ( Il Conte di Cagliostro). Why him?

BZ/EDP: As you know our choices are never as casual as they look. To begin with, there is a link with l’Avogador and this link is esoteric, which l’Avogador is introduced by the Jewish doctor Abrahim. Therefore, we chose Cagliostro because we wanted to deepen the concept of the esoteric and the ambivalent and clairvoyant personality.

SS: Why the esoteric; what is its relevance today?

BZ/EDP: In our view Cagliostro represents the spiritual drive which is in humankind, which is still in us today in spite of everything.

Cagliostro is very representative and modern in this sense. His ambivalent personality is very fascinating and, in fact, according to Pier Carpi, one of the most important biographers of Cagliostro, Giuseppe Balsamo and the Count of Cagliostro are two completely different persons. There is the battle between the official view from rationality and knowledge which comes from the diverse, which is persecuted and ignored.