This art book is printmaker Bruno Leti’s tribute to the Renaissance architecture of Florence. Bruno, an Australian-Italian, returned to the city in 2019 and renewed his admiration and fascination with ‘Fiorenza’.  Bruno is particularly drawn to the geometric system of the city’s Renaissance walls and facades. He returned to Australia with hundreds of photos and now has created a beautiful set of twenty prints and this book about the city and about those prints.  The book includes his photos of the classic buildings, his Florence sketchbook, and the  limited edition prints of 20 of photos that he enhanced by adding colour. The publication is for Florence aficionados, art lovers and particularly print-makers.

This trip inspired him to combine his extremely interesting shots of the architecture with his blocks of paint directly on the photos. The original photos are quite inspiring in that they show the walls and buildings at unusual angles and orientations.  There are only a few photos with people in them. Mostly he concentrates on the geometric elements. His addition of the rectangles, triangles and squares of colour makes you see the architectural details in a new way. The beauty and logic of the architectural blocks are greatly enhanced.

He took hundreds of photos, experimented with adding the paints to about a tenth of each photo. The result is a beautiful edition of twenty inkjet prints, 67 x 100 cm,  each an edition of five. The prints are named after a Florence building, space or architect (Carrara, Villani, Marsilia and so on). The photos are of the classic buildings and piazzas such as Piazza Duomo, Brunelleschi’s Dome.

Jenny Zimmer introduces the book with a history of the “Ribbons of Power” that Florence was, the subtitle of the book. Jenny is an art historian and classicist dedicated to the publication of books about Australian art culture. Paolo Baracchi writes a very personal the ‘Evocation’ to Florence and to the works in the book. He reminds us that rectangular aspects of the Renaissance structures have long influenced artists. He cites the work of the modernists Mondrian and Morandi particularly.

Bruno’s twenty prints make you see the architecture in a new way. The buildings and walls seem to come alive with the addition of the colours on carefully selected blocks on the photo. Proportion was the most important factor for Renaissance architects seeking a harmony through ordered geometry. 

For me, however,  it was the texture and colour variations in the stone, marble, brick and bronze that come to life looking at Bruno’s prints. His colour is not harsh, yet not muted. There is texture and nuance in his colour blocks that bring out the depth, colours and marbling of the structure’s rectangles and squares. They seem so much more than they would be without the added colour blocks. 

The 80 year old Bruno provides the Epilogue for Fiorenza, Ribbons of Power and writes “What is it about these exterior spaces that casts such a spell over me? I am entranced by these spaces, these piazzas, each time I return to them.” Every visitor to Florence has probably asked the same question.

The only thing missing in the book is a clear description of how Bruno made the prints. So I rang him and he was delighted to explain the process for this review. He adds acrylic or gouache paints to his own photographs then scans the result. The twenty prints are produced on an inkjet printer, 67 x 100  cm, on archival quality 350 gsm paper. This high-quality printing will ensure that these  works will maintain their colour-truth for as long as the Giotto’s Campanile and Brunelleschi’s Dome have stood. 

Bruno Leti’s Fiorenza, Ribbons Of Power’ is published by Australian Scholarly Priting

Featured image-Piazza Duomo.