Valerio Gaeti Sculpts Manzoni's The Betrothed in 38 Metal Works

Valerio Gaeti presents 38 sculptural works, one for each chapter of Alessandro Manzoni's novel The Betrothed (I Promessi Sposi), plus two additional pieces devoted to Manzoni's Storia della colonna infame. The project, titled "Valerio Gaeti. Scolpire I Promessi Sposi," is discussed by Mario Porro and Salvatore Silvano Nigro in a text dated Tuesday, 22 September 2026. Gaeti's sculptures derive from sheets of aluminium and brass, which the artist strikes by hand to produce forms moving along a spectrum from representation toward geometric abstraction. The works draw morphological and figural suggestions from episodes, dialogues and folds of Manzoni's narrative, alluding to the poor life of the people of that era and to faith in Providence as a source of hope for human redemption. The project arrives two hundred years after the publication of Italy's most famous historical novel, a bicentenary that has prompted many artists and engravers to illustrate its pages. Gaeti's approach distinguishes itself through the interplay between concave and convex surfaces generated by the beating of the hand on metal. Anita Romanello is also credited in the source material.