CORTONA’S
CHARM, SPLENDOUR AND MYSTERY
IN THE PICTURES OF ROBERTO MASSERELLI
A
tourist climbing up Via Guelfa can’t help stopping
in awe at the sight of the studio of photographer Roberto
Masserelli: some of the photographs on display in the
window allure him/her and rouse his/her curiosity as
they tell the story of the town they’re about
to visit. Cortona is, in fact, the object of desire
and the subject of all magical effects this vast and
interesting photography collection may conjure up. Roberto
Masserelli approaches the subject on tiptoe and a particular
romantic enthusiasm whether his camera is attempting
to encompass the town’s peerless panorama which
makes Cortona look, as Henry James wrote, “nearer
to the sky than to the railway station” or is
immortalizing in the twilight the Franciscan convent
of “Le Celle” enshrouded by the mystical
silence of its century-old stones and an atmosphere
of absolute peace and quiet...
COD:
01/001 Cortona - Panorama
COD:01/004
Cortona - Fortezza del Girfalco
COD:
01/012 Cortona - Chiesa di S. Cristoforo
COD:
01/013 Cortona - Fontana dei delfini
COD:
01/017 Cortona - Scorcio da via Santucci
COD:
01/018 Cortona - Chiesa di S. Niccolò
COD:
01/019 Cortona - Mercato sotto le logge del Teatro
Signorelli
The
majesty of this charming landscape uniquely rich in culture
and faith urged Masserelli to hone his technique and his
delicacy with exciting results as when faced with the medieval
Via Jannelli he manages to bring the story of these silent
brick houses and the movement of their wooden beams or picturesque
scenes taken from the Cortonese countryside and intense
blends of colours that no paintbrush could ever capture
before the eyes of the onlookers as well as pictures of
nearby Lake Trasimeno wrapped in a haze from which a fisher-boat
seems to emerge.
Besides specific characters which permeate his subjects
a sense of sacredness and mystery hovers over all of Masserelli’s
pictures which the photographer appropriately manages to
capture with grace and, at times, lyrical effusion amongst
trees, clouds, roof-tops, nooks and crannies, monuments
and the spectacles of an incomparably generous nature with
the utmost respect for the tutelary deity of this glorious
town. Cortona may be rightly considered in view of its mythical
origins a sacred place. As the English scholar George Dennis
wrote “I have travelled Italy length and breadth,
but I have most certainly never seen anywhere more venerable
than Cortona, which is older than Troy and existed even
before Achilles and Hector fought beneath it's walls. Upon
this high and barren hill whose turreted top lives in a
symbiosis with the clouds once dwelled mythical Dardanus
before he left Italy to found the Trojan race….”.
So legend has it.
And Roberto Masserelli with its dream-like images seems
to be wanting to tell us” Why not believe it?”
