Vincenzo Castella's 'Il libro di Padova': A Circular Photographic Journey

Vincenzo Castella (born 1952, Naples) discusses his photobook 'Il libro di Padova', published by Silvana Editoriale with texts by Salvatore Lacagnina. The book employs a circular structure, beginning and ending at Padua's botanical garden, one of Europe's oldest. Castella shot intentionally fragmented images, working on the start and end simultaneously, to create a non-chronological itinerary. He uses different paper types to modulate narrative tempo and transparency. The artist reflects on the relationship between man and nature, describing nature as a 'text to interpret' and a 'book'. He draws parallels to 17th-century optics, Giovanni Battista della Porta, and Galileo. Castella notes his photographs depict 'nature in captivity', a Western fixation since the 18th century, and compares the botanical garden's collection to a museum accumulation. His panoramic 3:1 format, previously used for Berlin, evokes a cinematic approach, inspired by Robert Bresson's concept of filming as 'anguish of not letting anything escape'. Castella emphasizes that his images use the entire frame without distinguishing center from detail, and that inserting 'spurious real elements' into the frame creates a reversal of positive and negative space. He finds Giotto, Mantegna, Guariento, and Giusto de' Menabuoi more engaging than Disney or Avengers.