Stefano Faravelli's Japan Travel Notebooks on View at Castello di Racconigi

Key facts

• Stefano Faravelli. Specchi del Giappone runs at the Castello di Racconigi until November 1, 2026.
• The exhibition is the first to gather Faravelli's original notebooks, albums, travel tools, and working materials.
• Stefano Faravelli was born in Turin in 1959 and is credited with introducing the carnet de voyage genre to Italy.
• The show occupies an eighteenth-century space with antique painted papers from China, renamed the Japanese Apartment in the early 1900s.
• In 1909 the rooms hosted Tsar Nicholas II during his stay at Racconigi.
• Furnishings were made by Michele Dellera's workshop or bought from the Turin firm Tognacca & Giglio Tos, specializing in Oriental furniture and objects.
• Faravelli's latest carnet, the exhibition's source, was published by EDT for its 50th anniversary; the collaboration began in 2004 and has reached seven titles, with some work at Adelphi.
• Previous carnets covered China, Mali, India, and Madagascar; the Japan volume was inspired by family photographs of his great-aunt Irma as a geisha and by Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon, seen at age eight.
• Faravelli studied under Giacomo Soffiantino, Piero Ruggeri, and Sergio Saroni, then switched to philosophy, learned Arabic, and collaborated for seven years with Guido Ceronetti at the Teatro dei Sensibili.