Work created for the 1965 Premio Nettuno award, shown in the exhibition dedicated to Conrad IV of Swabia, known as Corradino, organised by Gian Tomaso Liverani at the Torre Astura at Nettuno. Held the year after American Pop art took Venice by storm, the invitation-only prize was attended by leading figures from the Rome avant-garde, who, as a review of the time noted, treated the historical theme ‘with such freedom of execution as to seem like a polite protest against Pop art’.1 The prize was won by Sergio Lombardo’s work Scacco al re (Check to the King), even if the exhibition is best remembered for Requiescat, the action by Pino Pascali, acknowledged as one of Italy’s first ever performances.2 Mauri made a large canvas Schermo (Screen) to mark the occasion. Like a comic strip, La Cronaca di Corradino is punctuated by a grid of black outlines, for the most part occupied by monochrome fields on which stencil-painted letters are visible. Against a white background, in the central field the large face of a ruler (perhaps Charles of Anjou) contrasts with the icy figure of Corradino; a stencil inscription repeats that name three times, and an unintelligible erased item provides counterpoint. A tongue of fire, or perhaps the young Swabian’s blond hair, famous in chronicles of his day, stretches between the two figures.

1. A. Bovi, ‘Premio Nettuno 1965’, in Il Messaggero, 21 August 1965.
2. See, for example, M. Mininni, Arte in scena: la performance in Italia 1965–1980, Danilo Montanari editore, Ravenna, 1995, pp. 5, 9.