From 7 December 2023 to 7 April 2024 the Antico Ospedale Santa Maria della Scala Foundation in collaboration with the Fausto Melotti Foundation presents the exhibition “Fausto Melotti. Lightly. A tribute to Italo Calvino” edited by Michelina Eremita.

The exhibition aims to enhance the cultural and aesthetic affinity of the two friends, both known for their apparently impossible balances, poised between the visible and the invisible and for being undisputed protagonists of the national artistic and cultural scene and international. The relationship between Fausto Melotti (Rovereto 1901- Milan 1986) and Italo Calvino (Santiago de Las Vegas de La Habana, 1923 – Siena, 1985) was intense and full of mutual exchanges, both intellectual and human, mentioned by Italo Calvino in the pages of The Invisible Cities. «There was a moment when, after having met the sculptor Fausto Melotti, one of the first Italian abstract artists, (…) I felt like writing cities as thin as his sculptures: cities on stilts, spiderweb cities». (IC).

The exhibition in particular refers to the works that became images of Calvino's books for the re-edition of his writings in the Oscar Mondadori series, which took place in the 2000s. The itinerary includes 22 sculptures of various sizes and many drawings, spanning a period from 1935 to 1985. Sculptures such as Costante Uomo from 1936, Il viaggio (1961) and Contrappunto libero (1972) will plastically reveal the words of Italo Calvino, but at the same time they will pay homage to Fausto Melotti, one of the most important artists of the twentieth century, characterized by imponderable lightness , the basis of his artistic research. A section will also be dedicated to the genius of Fausto Melotti's creative process to document the stages of progress of the work: from the genesis, the sketch, to the drawing, up to the finished work.