Contents 11 | Foreword
125 | Good Vibrations?
Mario Cospito
The “Two Cultures” of Carlo Maurilio Lerici: Interdisciplinary Industrialist and Patron of the Arts and Sciences
Italian Ambassador to Sweden
13 | Enchanting Architecture
Frederick Whitling
Maria Sica
17 | Concise Instructions
for the Time-Pressured Visitor Salvatore Licitra 21 | The Scent of Italy in Stockholm Fulvio Irace
57 | Clear, Pure, and Sunlit
148 | Timeline Giovanni Bellucci 152 | Biographies Edited by Giovanni Bellucci
155 | Selected References
95 | The Italian Cultural Institute
157 | Acknowledgements
Giovanni Bellucci 111 | The Journey to the North
The Italian Cultural Institute in Stockholm
Abbreviazioni AS-IIC Lerici = Archivio Storico dell'Istituto Italiano di Cultura “C.M. Lerici", Stoccolma CSAC Parma = Centro Studi e Archivio della Comunicazione, Università degli Studi di Parma
Adriana Rispoli
Domitilla Dardi
in Stockholm A Swedish Attitude Towards Italian Architecture
Abbreviations AS-IIC Lerici = Historical Archive of the Italian Cultural Institute “C.M. Lerici”, Stockholm CSAC Parma = Study Centre and Communication Archive, University of Parma
141 | Loving Art_Art is a Light
in the Context of the Relationships Between Swedish and Italian Architects Antonello Alici
160 | Architettura dell’incanto
L’Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Stoccolma di Gio Ponti Testi in italiano
Contents 11 | Foreword
125 | Good Vibrations?
Mario Cospito
The “Two Cultures” of Carlo Maurilio Lerici: Interdisciplinary Industrialist and Patron of the Arts and Sciences
Italian Ambassador to Sweden
13 | Enchanting Architecture
Frederick Whitling
Maria Sica
17 | Concise Instructions
for the Time-Pressured Visitor Salvatore Licitra 21 | The Scent of Italy in Stockholm Fulvio Irace
57 | Clear, Pure, and Sunlit
148 | Timeline Giovanni Bellucci 152 | Biographies Edited by Giovanni Bellucci
155 | Selected References
95 | The Italian Cultural Institute
157 | Acknowledgements
Giovanni Bellucci 111 | The Journey to the North
The Italian Cultural Institute in Stockholm
Abbreviazioni AS-IIC Lerici = Archivio Storico dell'Istituto Italiano di Cultura “C.M. Lerici", Stoccolma CSAC Parma = Centro Studi e Archivio della Comunicazione, Università degli Studi di Parma
Adriana Rispoli
Domitilla Dardi
in Stockholm A Swedish Attitude Towards Italian Architecture
Abbreviations AS-IIC Lerici = Historical Archive of the Italian Cultural Institute “C.M. Lerici”, Stockholm CSAC Parma = Study Centre and Communication Archive, University of Parma
141 | Loving Art_Art is a Light
in the Context of the Relationships Between Swedish and Italian Architects Antonello Alici
160 | Architettura dell’incanto
L’Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Stoccolma di Gio Ponti Testi in italiano
Foreword The building that has hosted the Italian Cultural Institute in Stockholm since 1958 is a splendid calling card for the culture of the Bel Paese in Sweden. Thanks to the farsightedness and generosity of Carlo Maurilio Lerici, and to the genius of three of the twentieth century’s finest architects and designers, Gio Ponti, Pier Luigi Nervi, and Ferruccio Rossetti, it was possible to plan and build the building that we see today, a veritable showcase of Italy’s ability to create beauty in those years. The architectural harmony of the building goes perfectly with the Italian design objects from that period, designed by Ponti himself and produced by the Cassina, Arredoluce, and Cagliani & Marazza companies. For more than six decades, our Cultural Institute, thanks to the diligent cultural activity of its directors, has become a home to Italian culture in Sweden. Alternating in its spaces are painting and photography exhibitions, chamber music concerts, theatrical performances, seminars, meetings, language courses, and film screenings.
Many are the illustrious exponents of the Italian and Swedish cultural scene who have visited its large spaces, in a marvellous encounter between two worlds, allowing for the strengthening of bilateral cultural relations and the best communication possible of our country’s cultural message. In honour of the Institute’s crucial role, on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of its activity, a commemorative plaque was unveiled by the President of the Republic of Italy Sergio Mattarella and the King of Sweden, His Majesty Carl XVI Gustaf. This publication, thanks to the writings of the scholars who contributed to it and the wealth of illustrations showing the various phases of the construction and its artistic details, guides the readers in their discovery of the stories and treasures safeguarded within it. Mario Cospito Italian Ambassador to Sweden
11 |
Foreword The building that has hosted the Italian Cultural Institute in Stockholm since 1958 is a splendid calling card for the culture of the Bel Paese in Sweden. Thanks to the farsightedness and generosity of Carlo Maurilio Lerici, and to the genius of three of the twentieth century’s finest architects and designers, Gio Ponti, Pier Luigi Nervi, and Ferruccio Rossetti, it was possible to plan and build the building that we see today, a veritable showcase of Italy’s ability to create beauty in those years. The architectural harmony of the building goes perfectly with the Italian design objects from that period, designed by Ponti himself and produced by the Cassina, Arredoluce, and Cagliani & Marazza companies. For more than six decades, our Cultural Institute, thanks to the diligent cultural activity of its directors, has become a home to Italian culture in Sweden. Alternating in its spaces are painting and photography exhibitions, chamber music concerts, theatrical performances, seminars, meetings, language courses, and film screenings.
Many are the illustrious exponents of the Italian and Swedish cultural scene who have visited its large spaces, in a marvellous encounter between two worlds, allowing for the strengthening of bilateral cultural relations and the best communication possible of our country’s cultural message. In honour of the Institute’s crucial role, on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of its activity, a commemorative plaque was unveiled by the President of the Republic of Italy Sergio Mattarella and the King of Sweden, His Majesty Carl XVI Gustaf. This publication, thanks to the writings of the scholars who contributed to it and the wealth of illustrations showing the various phases of the construction and its artistic details, guides the readers in their discovery of the stories and treasures safeguarded within it. Mario Cospito Italian Ambassador to Sweden
11 |
MARIA SICA Director of the Italian Cultural Institute “C.M. Lerici”
Enchanting Architecture “Enchantment, a useless thing but as indispensable as bread. Give us this day our daily enchantment”1 “For the lovers of architecture”2 and for those who wish to get to know the building designed by Gio Ponti to host the headquarters of the Italian Cultural Institute in Stockholm, this book is the promise of a story at the heart of which is what Ponti himself described as “one of the most wonderful episodes of my life”.3 The history of this building, which flourished in the city’s Gärdet district, does not only concern the appeal of the protagonists and events that bore witness to its making. Rather, it is also enlivened by the weight of time and the walls that sustain it thanks to the precise and playful simplicity of the lines and the spaces that have made it a place of enchantment. It is here that we work to contribute to the fulfilment of the everyday fairy tale that Ponti so hoped for, conscious of the privilege of being able to spend our working hours day after day in a place as comfortable and beautiful as this. A place that, because of its institutional mission as a centre for the valorisation and dissemination of Italian culture, is destined to be filled with ever-new desires, preserving intact – in this continuous flow between past, present, and future – the genius loci of its founders: Carlo Maurilio Lerici, the client, and Gio Ponti, the architect. They are, respectively, akin to the father and the mother from whom – to paraphrase the words of the humanist architect Filarete – architecture should always be born. The narrative of this building is thus tantamount to a tale of modernity, of the happiness in making that both the client and the architect shared, two men who together
penned, using a language of productivity filled with excellent but at the same time light and generous ideas, the grammar of a new beginning in cultural relations between Italy and Sweden. The Cultural Institute is a building where people work. In this osmotic relationship that links the structure to its use, the pace and the rhythm of the activity that takes place inside depends on the purpose of the space in which it is hosted – akin to the way that those who spend time here discover a sort of natural path towards the enchantment of ideas and knowledge. Hence, it is not a monument, but rather the dynamic representation of an idea of culture that will always describe who we are in an uncomplicated, clear, and perfect way. The column, the rustication, the Carrara marble, and then light, lightness, colour. Classical and contemporary coexist side by side in an eternal present made vivid and original by an internal dialectic, which always puts people, their happiness, their pursuit of time and their effort to manage it, at the heart of everything. The significance of our work in Stockholm is exactly this: an analysis of the reasons behind our country’s history, its meanings, its relations with these territories, outlining new solutions and novel languages, enshrined in a place that preserves the memory of the people who designed its physiognomy. I draw once again from Ponti’s crystal-cum-book, which helps me to define continuity in culture in the best way possible. Indeed, Ponti interprets it in a personal key, stating that: I am interested in the splendour of the past but much more interested in the splendour of the future.
13 |
MARIA SICA Director of the Italian Cultural Institute “C.M. Lerici”
Enchanting Architecture “Enchantment, a useless thing but as indispensable as bread. Give us this day our daily enchantment”1 “For the lovers of architecture”2 and for those who wish to get to know the building designed by Gio Ponti to host the headquarters of the Italian Cultural Institute in Stockholm, this book is the promise of a story at the heart of which is what Ponti himself described as “one of the most wonderful episodes of my life”.3 The history of this building, which flourished in the city’s Gärdet district, does not only concern the appeal of the protagonists and events that bore witness to its making. Rather, it is also enlivened by the weight of time and the walls that sustain it thanks to the precise and playful simplicity of the lines and the spaces that have made it a place of enchantment. It is here that we work to contribute to the fulfilment of the everyday fairy tale that Ponti so hoped for, conscious of the privilege of being able to spend our working hours day after day in a place as comfortable and beautiful as this. A place that, because of its institutional mission as a centre for the valorisation and dissemination of Italian culture, is destined to be filled with ever-new desires, preserving intact – in this continuous flow between past, present, and future – the genius loci of its founders: Carlo Maurilio Lerici, the client, and Gio Ponti, the architect. They are, respectively, akin to the father and the mother from whom – to paraphrase the words of the humanist architect Filarete – architecture should always be born. The narrative of this building is thus tantamount to a tale of modernity, of the happiness in making that both the client and the architect shared, two men who together
penned, using a language of productivity filled with excellent but at the same time light and generous ideas, the grammar of a new beginning in cultural relations between Italy and Sweden. The Cultural Institute is a building where people work. In this osmotic relationship that links the structure to its use, the pace and the rhythm of the activity that takes place inside depends on the purpose of the space in which it is hosted – akin to the way that those who spend time here discover a sort of natural path towards the enchantment of ideas and knowledge. Hence, it is not a monument, but rather the dynamic representation of an idea of culture that will always describe who we are in an uncomplicated, clear, and perfect way. The column, the rustication, the Carrara marble, and then light, lightness, colour. Classical and contemporary coexist side by side in an eternal present made vivid and original by an internal dialectic, which always puts people, their happiness, their pursuit of time and their effort to manage it, at the heart of everything. The significance of our work in Stockholm is exactly this: an analysis of the reasons behind our country’s history, its meanings, its relations with these territories, outlining new solutions and novel languages, enshrined in a place that preserves the memory of the people who designed its physiognomy. I draw once again from Ponti’s crystal-cum-book, which helps me to define continuity in culture in the best way possible. Indeed, Ponti interprets it in a personal key, stating that: I am interested in the splendour of the past but much more interested in the splendour of the future.
13 |
accidentally, nor has it been done for publicity reasons. Without ostentation, without monumental apparatuses, and without laborious and cerebral discussions, new ideas have not just entered the minds of the finest and freest architects, but in those of the factory managers, in the trade and industry sectors, in the city and state offices, in the normal beliefs of the everyday citizen. In this country [. . .] modern art is a human, natural, often almost inexpressive thing: it thrives in a climate of peace, and it produces, not for chaotic, polemical or demagogic generations, but for peaceful and very vigilant interior selections.”27 In 1943, Ponti as well would go back to this subject,28 commenting on the “amazing Ericsson
building” that had recently been published in the German periodical Moderne Bauformen. “Clear, light, peaceful, sunlit, and simple”, the telephone plant was a recent work by the architect Ture Wennerholm (1982–1957), who ten years later would be Ponti’s partner – and complicated deuteragonist – in the drafting and execution of the blueprints for the Institute in Stockholm. Ponti’s journey to Stockholm, his personal experience visiting the city and the surroundings of Gustafsberg, would strengthen his opinion, which was documented enthusiastically in an article he wrote for Corriere della Sera in which he invited all Italian architects and urban planners to go to Sweden to “learn how to rebuild Italy”.29
13 | From bottom to top, clockwise: elevation of the north side of the Institute viewed from Gärdesgatan, from the east side (back facade), and from the north side (back of auditorium), 1955 (AS-IIC Lerici) Dal basso verso l’alto, in senso orario: prospetto del lato nord dell’Istituto visto da Gärdesgatan, del lato est (facciata posteriore) e del lato nord (retro auditorium), 1955 (AS-IIC Lerici)
14 | Plan, cross sections, and elevations of the auditorium, and cross section of the part of the building with offices and guest quarters, 1955 (AS-IIC Lerici) Planimetria, sezioni e prospetti dell’auditorium, e sezione della parte dell’edificio con uffici e foresteria, 1955 (AS-IIC Lerici)
Gärdesgatan 14 On 16 December 1952, the Dagens Nyheter published the news of the forthcoming construction of a new headquarters for the Italian Cultural Institute: it was illustrated in a drawing by Ture Wennerholm, who was the architect working for the Royal Direction of Public Buildings at the time. In 1940, Wennerholm had collaborated with Ivar Tengbom, the architect of the Swedish Institute of Classical Studies in Rome. On 5 December 1952, Wennerholm had a preliminary plan ready: the lot was a triangle bordered by two streets and a deep ditch (this was later filled to expand the amount of area available), where the buildings were arranged according to the slope. It was accompanied by the drawing
of a facade with two buildings. The drawing was rudimentary and the architecture of rather simplified taste, with a double-pitch roof emphasising its almost rural nature. The modernity that Ponti had admired in Wennerholm’s factories paved the way for architecture that was so pared down it frankly almost seemed abandoned. As such it was unacceptable for both the architect and the client Lerici. The proposal arrived on Ponti’s desk at the firm on Via Dezza, and it was soon followed (on 18 February 1953) by the plan of the area where the locations of other embassies and the building restrictions were marked. Ponti’s dissatisfaction was apparent from the pencil marks he made directly on the plan, in which he seemed to be
13
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37 |
accidentally, nor has it been done for publicity reasons. Without ostentation, without monumental apparatuses, and without laborious and cerebral discussions, new ideas have not just entered the minds of the finest and freest architects, but in those of the factory managers, in the trade and industry sectors, in the city and state offices, in the normal beliefs of the everyday citizen. In this country [. . .] modern art is a human, natural, often almost inexpressive thing: it thrives in a climate of peace, and it produces, not for chaotic, polemical or demagogic generations, but for peaceful and very vigilant interior selections.”27 In 1943, Ponti as well would go back to this subject,28 commenting on the “amazing Ericsson
building” that had recently been published in the German periodical Moderne Bauformen. “Clear, light, peaceful, sunlit, and simple”, the telephone plant was a recent work by the architect Ture Wennerholm (1982–1957), who ten years later would be Ponti’s partner – and complicated deuteragonist – in the drafting and execution of the blueprints for the Institute in Stockholm. Ponti’s journey to Stockholm, his personal experience visiting the city and the surroundings of Gustafsberg, would strengthen his opinion, which was documented enthusiastically in an article he wrote for Corriere della Sera in which he invited all Italian architects and urban planners to go to Sweden to “learn how to rebuild Italy”.29
13 | From bottom to top, clockwise: elevation of the north side of the Institute viewed from Gärdesgatan, from the east side (back facade), and from the north side (back of auditorium), 1955 (AS-IIC Lerici) Dal basso verso l’alto, in senso orario: prospetto del lato nord dell’Istituto visto da Gärdesgatan, del lato est (facciata posteriore) e del lato nord (retro auditorium), 1955 (AS-IIC Lerici)
14 | Plan, cross sections, and elevations of the auditorium, and cross section of the part of the building with offices and guest quarters, 1955 (AS-IIC Lerici) Planimetria, sezioni e prospetti dell’auditorium, e sezione della parte dell’edificio con uffici e foresteria, 1955 (AS-IIC Lerici)
Gärdesgatan 14 On 16 December 1952, the Dagens Nyheter published the news of the forthcoming construction of a new headquarters for the Italian Cultural Institute: it was illustrated in a drawing by Ture Wennerholm, who was the architect working for the Royal Direction of Public Buildings at the time. In 1940, Wennerholm had collaborated with Ivar Tengbom, the architect of the Swedish Institute of Classical Studies in Rome. On 5 December 1952, Wennerholm had a preliminary plan ready: the lot was a triangle bordered by two streets and a deep ditch (this was later filled to expand the amount of area available), where the buildings were arranged according to the slope. It was accompanied by the drawing
of a facade with two buildings. The drawing was rudimentary and the architecture of rather simplified taste, with a double-pitch roof emphasising its almost rural nature. The modernity that Ponti had admired in Wennerholm’s factories paved the way for architecture that was so pared down it frankly almost seemed abandoned. As such it was unacceptable for both the architect and the client Lerici. The proposal arrived on Ponti’s desk at the firm on Via Dezza, and it was soon followed (on 18 February 1953) by the plan of the area where the locations of other embassies and the building restrictions were marked. Ponti’s dissatisfaction was apparent from the pencil marks he made directly on the plan, in which he seemed to be
13
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37 |
ADRIANA RISPOLI Art Critic and Curator
Loving Art_Art is a Light In paraphrasing Gio Ponti's most famous writing, “Loving architecture_architecture is a crystal”, we would like to focus on a fundamental aspect of the philosophy of the great Milanese architect, the osmosis between architecture and art. Ponti himself stated: The most resistant element is neither concrete, nor wood, nor stone, nor steel, nor glass. The most resistant material in building is art.1 Ever since it was founded, the building designed by Gio Ponti in Stockholm, the headquarters of the Italian Cultural Institute, has constituted the tangible representation of the theory of the total artwork. In the wake of this thinking and based upon the indelible trace left by Ponti and his client, Carlo Maurilio Lerici, and thanks also to the enlightened vision of the director of the Institute, Maria Sica, from 2018 to 2020 the building has hosted a series of contemporary art events that have especially involved the most visible architectural element, as well as being the one that was closest to Ponti’s heart: the facade. The artists who were asked to conceive a site-specific project have produced a trilogy of works that, on the one hand, are the perfect example of current trends in Italian art, and, on the other, represent the history of our present. In the darkness that falls early in winter in Scandinavia, the works of Bianco-Valente, Mariangela Levita, and Monica Bonvicini have illuminated, and not just metaphorically, this gem of Italian architecture, situated in Stockholm’s diplomatic district, by way of an artistic and poetic sign. Albeit very different from each other, the three installations reflect a common modus operandi in conceiving art as an inextricable interlacing of content and form
whose message reflects the urgent demands of the contemporary world. Based on the need to represent the invisible networks that join us, and to celebrate the building that is the seat of the Institute as a place of encounter, exchange, and relations, Bianco-Valente has created Relational, a sidereal constellation of sorts that delicately embraces the architecture, offering a new interpretation. To celebrate the five hundred years of the genius of the Italian Renaissance and to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the death of Gio Ponti, Mariangela Levita has conceived TUTTO.Leonardo, a total installation that fosters a synthesis between Leonardo’s theory of colour and a concept that Ponti especially cherished, which stated that the whole world must be full of colour!2 Lastly, Monica Bonvicini has created a large lit sign that reads Power Joy Humor Resistance. In paraphrasing the words of the activist Soraya Chemaly,3 it is meant to be a warning for society. By commissioning these three works, the Institute has revealed its goal to bring contemporary art outside conventional spaces and closer to a broader public, while at the same time underscoring the primary purpose of Gio Ponti’s building in Stockholm: to promote dialogue between different cultures. In all three instances, these artists, “genetically” oriented towards working in osmosis with architecture, combined their own research with ideas inspired by the design, aesthetic, urban, and social characteristics of this building, guiding these characteristics toward a singular poetics and generating a whole with the architecture. While Bianco-Valente’s Relational, with its irregular twisting together of electroluminescent cables,
141 |
ADRIANA RISPOLI Art Critic and Curator
Loving Art_Art is a Light In paraphrasing Gio Ponti's most famous writing, “Loving architecture_architecture is a crystal”, we would like to focus on a fundamental aspect of the philosophy of the great Milanese architect, the osmosis between architecture and art. Ponti himself stated: The most resistant element is neither concrete, nor wood, nor stone, nor steel, nor glass. The most resistant material in building is art.1 Ever since it was founded, the building designed by Gio Ponti in Stockholm, the headquarters of the Italian Cultural Institute, has constituted the tangible representation of the theory of the total artwork. In the wake of this thinking and based upon the indelible trace left by Ponti and his client, Carlo Maurilio Lerici, and thanks also to the enlightened vision of the director of the Institute, Maria Sica, from 2018 to 2020 the building has hosted a series of contemporary art events that have especially involved the most visible architectural element, as well as being the one that was closest to Ponti’s heart: the facade. The artists who were asked to conceive a site-specific project have produced a trilogy of works that, on the one hand, are the perfect example of current trends in Italian art, and, on the other, represent the history of our present. In the darkness that falls early in winter in Scandinavia, the works of Bianco-Valente, Mariangela Levita, and Monica Bonvicini have illuminated, and not just metaphorically, this gem of Italian architecture, situated in Stockholm’s diplomatic district, by way of an artistic and poetic sign. Albeit very different from each other, the three installations reflect a common modus operandi in conceiving art as an inextricable interlacing of content and form
whose message reflects the urgent demands of the contemporary world. Based on the need to represent the invisible networks that join us, and to celebrate the building that is the seat of the Institute as a place of encounter, exchange, and relations, Bianco-Valente has created Relational, a sidereal constellation of sorts that delicately embraces the architecture, offering a new interpretation. To celebrate the five hundred years of the genius of the Italian Renaissance and to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the death of Gio Ponti, Mariangela Levita has conceived TUTTO.Leonardo, a total installation that fosters a synthesis between Leonardo’s theory of colour and a concept that Ponti especially cherished, which stated that the whole world must be full of colour!2 Lastly, Monica Bonvicini has created a large lit sign that reads Power Joy Humor Resistance. In paraphrasing the words of the activist Soraya Chemaly,3 it is meant to be a warning for society. By commissioning these three works, the Institute has revealed its goal to bring contemporary art outside conventional spaces and closer to a broader public, while at the same time underscoring the primary purpose of Gio Ponti’s building in Stockholm: to promote dialogue between different cultures. In all three instances, these artists, “genetically” oriented towards working in osmosis with architecture, combined their own research with ideas inspired by the design, aesthetic, urban, and social characteristics of this building, guiding these characteristics toward a singular poetics and generating a whole with the architecture. While Bianco-Valente’s Relational, with its irregular twisting together of electroluminescent cables,
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5 CONTINENTS EDITIONS Art Direction Direzione Artistica Annarita De Sanctis Editorial Coordination Coordinamento Editoriale Elena Carotti Translations Traduzioni Sylvia Notini Editing Redazione Charles Gute, Lucia Moretti Colour Separation Fotolito Maurizio Brivio, Milan
All rights reserved Tutti i diritti riservati © 2021 – Istituto Italiano di Cultura a Stoccolma © The Authors for their texts Gli autori per i testi © Luciano Romano for his photographs per le fotografie For the present edition Per la presente edizione © 2021 – 5 Continents Editions S.r.l. All photographs are by Luciano Romano unless otherwise indicated Tutte le foto sono di Luciano Romano salvo dove diversamente indicato No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. È vietata la riproduzione o duplicazione di qualsiasi parte di questo libro, con qualsiasi mezzo.
ISBN: 978-88-7439-960-4 Distributed by ACC Art Books throughout the world, excluding Italy. Distributed in Italy and Switzerland by Messaggerie Libri S.p.A. Distribuito da Messaggerie Libri S.p.A. in Italia e Canton Ticino
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Printed and bound in Italy in March 2021 by Conti Tipocolor, Florence, Italy for 5 Continents Editions, Milan Finito di stampare nel mese di marzo 2021 presso Conti Tipocolor, Firenze, Italia per conto di 5 Continents Editions, Milano