Roberto Orlando's Botanical Manual at Florence's Giardino dei Semplici

Roberto Orlando (Palermo, 1996) presents Manuale, an exhibition merging art and botany, at one of the greenhouses of the Orto botanico Giardino dei Semplici in Florence. Curated by Mario Bronzino and in collaboration with ME Vannucci gallery of Pistoia, the show explores biographical, artistic, and historical aspects. Orlando, interested in manual pollination, personally performs this fertilization method to create a visual language that investigates the contact between human hand and flower pistils. His series Botanologico depicts pollination stages on plants such as Victoria cruziana, Vanilla, Cacao, and Brugmansia with detailed, delicate hatching. Another series, Del Metodo e delle Avvertenze, functions as an image archive with an "almost childish approach, primarily directed at representing subjects at eye level." In large compositions, close-up views magnify cautious operations of a black hand wielding sterile, silver instruments—not as a violent imposition but as a performative macro-gesture of care and desire to generate life. The exhibition results from Orlando's direct experience with the botanical garden and aims to enhance its cultural value, inviting visitors to explore its spaces. Beyond wall works, Orlando experiments with luminous transparency on glass windows, applying minimal drawings that evoke an idyllic natural world.