Hallelujah Tuscany

Hallelujah Tuscany is an exploration into the depths, a tale of a misunderstood Tuscany, made up of contradictions, nuances, beauties outside the classical iconography known all over the world. "On this journey," says Marco Paoli, "I found wonder, splendor hidden from most; but I also saw and suffered abandonment in all its power. Glorious pasts buried and forgotten; ruins, remains, splendid buildings disused and left to their own devices. Where traces of humanity are lost and nature, undisturbed, triumphs... The title is important, it is a balancing act between the sacred and the profane, as in Leonard Cohen's lyrics. Hallelujah is a hymn, a simple exclamation. Sometimes it is sarcastic, perhaps polemical."

Thanks to a meeting with poet Alba Donati, the images that make up this journey have become eloquent. In 2017, a book, Hallelujah Toscana, published by Contrasto, resulted, with a foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Michael Cunningham.

In the Salone Borghini of the Museo degli Innocenti is a selection of thirty black-and-white images, where the human presence is deliberately absent, although man is the creator of what is stopped in these shots. There are the ghostly atmospheres of some villas and their gardens, such as Villa Corsini in San Casciano, Villa Mansi in Lucca and Villa Garzoni in Collodi, inhabited by silent moss-covered sculptures. There are: the park of Celle with its contemporary works, the vivid marble of the Carrara quarries, the Fonte delle Fate in Poggibonsi where Mimmo Paladino's crocodiles and cowering bodies float, but also the prison of Pianosa, the Cisternone and the Terme del Corallo in Livorno. The Fucecchio Marshes and the Basilica of San Marco in Florence. The Opifici del Lombricese in Lucca, the Giogana in Camaldoli, the former Banti sanatorium in Pratolino and the Pinti cemetery in Florence.

There is a "silent melancholy" in Marco Paoli's evocative images, which appear so free to reveal those hidden emotions that only an unspoiled landscape can give. But there is also the mystery of former psychiatric hospitals, such as that of Maggiano in Lucca and that of Volterra, where traces of the graffiti of NOF4 (this is how Oreste Fernando Nannetti signed his name, who made them with the buckle of his uniform, a patient of the asylum from 1959 to 1973) still remain.

"As part of our Seicentennial, which opened with an inauguration ceremony attended by President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella," comments the president of theIstituto degli Innocenti, Maria Grazia Giuffrida - we are happy to promote in the coming months a project supported by the Region of Tuscany that enhances through the photographic image lesser-known places in our region that deserve to emerge, a research work that is akin to our commitment to enhance the historical and artistic heritage of theIstituto degli Innocenti, a precious heritage that is still little known, preserved in the Museo degli Innocenti."

"It is a pleasure for us to host Paoli's evocative images in the Salone Borghini ," says the director general of theIstituto degli Innocenti, Giovanni Palumbo, "which speak of a beautiful Tuscany full of contradictions, of places that are different from the postcard images known throughout the world. After the Venturino Venturi mater exhibition, the museum itinerary is again enriched with contemporary languages thanks to Paoli's 'interesting photographic narrative."