Italian Culture Ministry Launches Social Campaign Revealing Artists' Hidden Revisions

The Italian Ministry of Culture (MiC) has launched 'Ripensamenti d'artista', a weekly social media campaign that uncovers hidden revisions, pentimenti, and corrections in masterpieces of Italian art and literature. Revealed examples include mysterious eyes hidden in the folds of Saint Catherine's dress in Botticelli's Pala di Sant'Ambrogio at the Uffizi, a Tree of Life iconography emerging from Masaccio's Crucifixion after a 1950s restoration, and a dog originally held by the lady in Raphael's Lady with a Unicorn at the Galleria Borghese. The campaign, launched on International Museum Day (May 18) as promoted by ICOM, also covers literary works such as Grazia Deledda's Nobel-winning novel L'Edera (originally titled Romanzo Sardo), Giovanni Pascoli's poem Il poeta solitario with cancelled verses in the Fondazione Mario Novaro archive in Genoa, and Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso with corrected octaves at the Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli. The initiative aims to reveal the uncertainties and creative processes of Italian masters, showing corrected brushstrokes, accidental ink stains, and eliminated stanzas as traces of their artistic journey.