In addition to items from the Brown University Library’s Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection and items from RISD’s collections, “The Festive City” — currently on exhibit at the RISD Museum of Art through July 14, 2013 — features rare 18th-century prints on loan to the RISD Museum from private collector and Brown alumni Vincent J. Buonanno. Many of the prints loaned to the Museum (example), as well as those from Brown University Library collections (example), were recently digitized by Digital Production Services. The reproductions of Buonanno’s loaned prints benefitted from our most recent digital camera reprographic setup (which uses an Aptus-II 12 80-megapixel digital camera back).
Buonanno’s loaned collection of Chinea prints — prints commissioned to document sovereigns offering tributes to the Pope, as yearly Roman festivals — represents the annual festivals in an almost complete set, spanning the 1720s through 1780s. Reviews of the “Festive City” exhibit were recently featured in the Boston Globe and Providence Journal.
Students in Brown Professor Evelyn Lincoln’s Spring 2010 Graduate Practicum in the Department of the History of Art & Architecture curated and produced a collection of related essays, “Reading Ritual: Festival Books from the Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection.”
“Il Parnaso con Apollo e le Muse” (Gori Sassoli title); Giovanni Battista Sintes, 1680-1760 (etcher); Roma: 1733.