The project of contemporary art interventions in the Limonaia Grande of Boboli continues with a new site-specific installation by Domenico Bianchi. It is a monumental work of approximately 90 meters composed of images and paintings made with different materials. The title Sidereus refers to the “Sidereus Nuncius”, the famous scientific treatise by Galileo Galilei. And the celestial horizon, the most distant universe, the “music,” and the stars’ light inspired Domenico Bianchi’s project.

Conceived and curated by Sergio Risaliti, the project was carried out in collaboration with the Special Superintendency for the Historical, Artistic, and Ethnoanthropological Heritage and for the Museum Center of the city of Florence, the management of the Boboli Gardens and organized by Once Extraordinary Events.

Concept

Sidereus is a monumental composition of images and works that occupies the inner part of the Limonaia. It gives the sensation of immense vastness, sublime depth, infinite variety, and prescribed regularity. Domenico Bianchi also placed a bench in the front garden, establishing a link between the contemplation of art, the cosmos, and the enjoyment of nature. The benches enriched with marble inlays recall the link between abstract geometries in painting and decorative arts, earthly music and celestial harmony, and knowledge of the micro and macrocosm.

Domenico Bianchi imagined a series of works explicitly placed inside the Limonaia, a building designed by the architect Zanobi del Rosso in 1778. The installation includes a vast frieze, a continuous horizon of spheres, stellar vortices with varied designs regularly arranged in parallel rows, and fifteen paintings made on wood or wax with silver-palladium inserts.

The title ‘Sidereus’, the famous scientific treatise by Galileo Galilei, whose 450th birthday was celebrated in 2014 (Pisa, 15 February 1564).

In Sidereus, there is an inherent thought toward the philosophy of symbols: Hermeticism and Platonism. This is a tribute to the new science of Galileo and to man’s constant desire to deal with the inner imagination of forms and archetypes, with the geometry of the cosmos and the infinite variety of worlds between visible and invisible, between near and far.

The Artist

Bianchi’s art, exhibited between 1985 and 1987, uses carved marks and plaster to depict noble materials and inlays in marble. Since 1989, he has explored using computer technology to transform 2D drawings into spherical forms. In 1992, he participated in the 3rd Istanbul Biennial and the collective show Terrae Motus, which Lucio Amelio organized in the Reggia di Caserta. Since then, international exhibitions have followed, including the Venice Biennale and Minimalia. His works are in prestigious public and private collections, including the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Castello di Rivoli, Macro in Rome, and the Olnick-Spanu Collection. Bianchi’s art aims to preserve historical and artistic memory, prioritize manual and slow processes over mass production, and uphold uniqueness and symbolism. His work seeks to unify the microcosm with the macrocosm and the finite with the infinite.