Infiorata Flower Festival Kicks off in Noto

By Alberto Lunetta/NAS Sigonella Public Affairs

Make sure to visit Noto’s Infiorata Flower Festival this weekend. The festival features floral art displays, entertainment, wine tasting, arts and crafts booths and more.

Photo by Domenica Prinzivalli.

It’s that time of the year again! Noto’s enchanting Infiorata flower festival returns this weekend and will be open through May 18. Along the streets of the historic center, festivalgoers will get a chance to see flower decorations that cover about 700 square meters. Every year, the city administration announces the theme of the year and then organizes a competition for the best arrangements. This year’s festival, which marks the 40th edition, will be dedicated to the Sicilians who immigrated to the United States. Mayor Corrado Bonfanti said the festival would focus on maintaining the emotional bond between Sicily and its immigrants and discovering their success stories.

Infioratori, the artists working with the flowers, will begin to fill their drawings with petals a few days before the official opening on May 17. About 400,000 flowers of all varieties are used to create floral artwork of holy images and modern topics. Most of the displays can be seen along Via Corrado Nicolaci, although there will be smaller decorations in adjoining roads, courtyards, and squares. The balconies of Palazzo Villadorata, Montevergini Church, and the aristocratic palaces of Modica and Giunta form a unique Baroque backdrop for the event. The festival will also feature a vintage car parade, dance and music shows, art exhibits, and food booths selling local specialties as well as spectacular Baroque costumes parade and fireworks show.

Noto’s tradition of decorating its main streets was borrowed from the one that is annually organized in Genzano, a small village in the center of Italy. There, petals were traditionally spread during religious processions honoring the Virgin Mary. In 1980, Noto administrators invited the Genzano decorators to Noto, and Sicilian artists quickly learned the techniques and the secrets of this ancient art. Since then, Infiorata has become one of the most important annual cultural events in Noto.

Noto is a picturesque Baroque city located southwest of Siracusa. Along with seven other towns in southeastern Sicily— Caltagirone, Militello Val di Catania, Catania, Modica, Palazzolo, Ragusa, and Scicli—Noto’s unique architecture has been recognized by UNESCO on its World Heritage List. Noto boasts a plethora of Baroque churches and palaces are among the most valuable examples of the skills of talented artists of the time such as Gagliardi, Sinatra, and Labisi.

For a detailed flower festival schedule or tourism information on Noto, visit http://www.comune.noto.sr.it.

Italy Celebrates 500 Years of Da Vinci

From www.iitaly.org

As the 500th anniversary of his death approaches, Italy is honoring Leonardo Da Vinci with a series of exhibitions and events. Among the foremost exhibits is at the Scuderie of the Quirinal Palace in Rome, where the exhibition “Leonardo: Science before Science” is on view through June 30. This exhibition offers a fresh reading of Da Vinci’s work in engineering, technology, art and thought at the dawn of the 16th century, whose scientific revolution gave birth to the modern age. Along with the exhibition, adults can take lessons in the technique of Renaissance-style fresco painting and drawing in perspective.

Also in Rome, the Primoli Foundation has organized an exhibition at the National Academy of the Lincei devoted to “Leonardo in Rome: Influence and Heritage.” And at the Palazzo della Cancelleria near Campo de’ Fiori is a permanent exhibition devoted to Leonardo, with largescale models of his projects.

In nearby Civitella del Lago is an exhibition entitled “On the Traces of Genius: Maps and Cosmography in the Time of Leonardo.” The maps on view – only rarely shown to the public – include 15th Century efforts to interpret Ptolemy’s 27 world maps from the 2nd century AD. It is believed that Ptolemy influenced Leonardo, fascinated by maps and cartography, in making his own maps of hydro-engineering projects for Florence, Milan, Arezzo, and the Vatican.

In Florence, his birthplace, Da Vinci is being celebrated at Palazzo Pitti with the exhibition “Leonardo, The Landscape of the Mysteries,” which includes a delightful Da Vinci drawing of the Arno River valley landscape.

In the picturesque town of Sansepolcro, near Arezzo, the Museo Civico hosts the exhibition entitled “Leonardo Da Vinci: Visions, the Technological Challenges of the Universal Genius.” The focus is movement, including inanimate flight. On view is a self-propelled cart that has been compared to an automobile. 3-D videos created by the Florentine Galileo Museum dramatically illustrate Leonardo’s.

In his youth, Leonardo worked in Milan, where he painted the now much-restored “The Last Supper” on a monastery wall. Not surprisingly, Milan offers eight Leonardo exhibitions. The Ambrosiana museum offers a selection of 46 drawings by Leonardo drawn from the 1,750 in his famous Codex Atlanticus, normally seen by only a few scholars. On view at the Ambrosiana will be 130 rarely visible models of Da Vinci projects – navigation, artillery, underwater engineering – built in the 1950s on the basis of Leonardo’s drawings. On two walls are paintings and frescoes, only rarely on view, on loan from the Pinacoteca di Brera. The nearby National Museum of Science and Technology will open a three-month exhibition on July 19 called “Leonardo Da Vinci Parade.”

Elsewhere in Italy, Turin offers an exceptional exhibition on Leonardo called “Designing the Future.” On view through July 14 at the Royal Museums are 13 signed works acquired by King Carlo Alberto plus the Codex on the Flight of Birds. Works on view include his celebrated self-portrait and the studies for the Battle of Anghiari. Venice’s Gallerie dell’Accademia’s theme is “Leonardo Da Vinci, Man as the Model of the World” with 25 drawings by Leonardo including the celebrated Vitruvian Man and the disputed “Madonna Litta.” And finally, Genoa’s Sant’Agostino Museum hosts works by 19 contemporary artists with works inspired by Leonardo, through May 31. The exhibit is called “Leonardesca.”