en
Italiano English

cerca

subscribe to our newsletter

follow us

event
Tuesday 17 December 2019 6.30 PM - 8.00 PM

Books at MAXXI.L’architettrice by Melania G. Mazzucco

MAXXI auditorium – free admittance until full capacity
10 individual seats reserved for myMAXXI cardholders writing to mymaxxi@fondazionemaxxi.it by the day before the event.

Plautilla, the first female architect in modern history, in the Rome of the Popes of the 17th century.

Giovanni Briccio is a plebeian genius, a bizarre stray dog in an era in which it was necessary to have a master, Briccio educated his daughter in painting. He launched her in the world of art as a child prodigy, obliging her to a destiny of virginity. A meeting with Elpidio Benedetti, an aspiring writer chosen by Cardinal Barberini as Mazzarino’s secretary, was to change her life. With the cooperation of this unusual travelling companion, she was to become far more than her father had ever dared imagine.

Melania G. Mazzucco, Premio Strega 2003, returns to the historical novel, to the passion for art and its interpreters. While recounting stories of the pomp, intrigues, violence and misery of the Rome of the popes, the enthusiasm of a century both bigoted and libertine, the author paints a portrait of an extraordinary 17th-century woman, remarkably skilled in avoiding the limelight and concealing her daring and dreams to achieve something capable of redeeming a lifetime: the construction of an original villa of delights on the hill dominating Rome, designed and built by her, Plautilla, the first female architect in modern history.

Speakers
Annalena Benini art historian and essayist
Costantino D’Orazio writer
Melania G. Mazzucco, author of the book
Readings by Anna Bonaiuto

In collaboration with Giulio Einaudi Editore