Public artwork commissioned for Lavinia exhibition of contemporary art developed in response to the restoration of the 17th century Loggia dei vini, Villa Borghese, Rome.

'Primo gusto' features works by: Ross Birrell & David Harding, Monika Sosnowska, Gianni Politi, Enzo Cucchi, Piero Golia, Virginia Overton.

For the exhibition, Ross Birrell & David Harding developed Love (Dante Desire Path) a poetry path text installation which follows the length of a 100m 'desire path' through the historic Villa Borghese gardens, from the Via dell’Uccelliera to the Loggia dei vini, built between 1609 and 1618 to a design by architect Flaminio Ponzio.

The path consists of a quotation from Dante Alighieri's La Vita Nuova (1294) reproduced both in Italian and English in cast bronze lettering inlayed into concrete slabs (produced in Sicily and mixed with volcanic ash).

The quotation from Dante reads: '... there was no man mine enemy any longer; and such warmth of charity came upon me that most certainly in that moment I would have pardoned whosoever had done me an injury; and if one should then have questioned me concerning any matter, I could only have said unto him "Love".'

The selection of the text respond to the theme of 'Agape' as the highest form of love - a theme evoked in Harding's previous poetry paths commissioned for documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel in 2017 and which responded to the refugee crisis in the wake of the Syrian Civil War. In the present context of Rome, the Dante text is selected as a response to the ethical challenge for future peace and resolution presented by the scale of civilian suffering in the concurrent wars in Gaza and Ukraine.

The typeface for the bronze letters is Eurostile, a geometric sans serif font designed in 1962 by Edgar Novarese for the Nebiolo foundry in Turin. The use of this popular font associated with Sci-Fi fiction and film was selected as a typeface by an important Italian designer who, during WWII had joined left-wing partisans fighting against the German Nazi's (today the word 'proletariat' is used for the Eurostile sample text online) as an historical contrast to the 17th Century historical context of the wealth, power and cultural influence of the Borghese family of Cardinals and Popes - and patrons of artists such as Caravaggio and Bernini.

Image Credits: Daniele Molajoli