Fabio Mauri’s Models as Portable Theatres of Memory: ‘Open Rehearsals’ for Dramaturgical and Narrative Space-time

Introduction

Prior to staging a theatrical or cinematic work, a preliminary consistency check is necessary to verify all preparatory materials for the final staging, from acting the text to performing the music, set design, costumes, lighting and choreography. This exercise evaluates potential alternatives, ensuring that all these factors successfully come together to implement the director’s procedural synthesis. Through verifying what and how to stage, the director transforms the architectural space-time of the stage or set into dramaturgical and narrative space-time, in which, plausibly and temporarily, fiction may stand in for reality. Rehearsal-stage materials include sketches, storyboards, prototypes and scale models (or maquettes). Fabio Mauri consistently used modelsand prototypes in his artistic practice. By the late 1960s, he was conceiving and making models for exhibitions, and prototypes of works in his artistic practice. In some instances, he integrated these elements into the exhibition’s final staging, displaying them alongside the works.

It was not, however, until 2016 that Madre Museum in Naples exhibited a selection from the corpus of Mauri models. The fact that this installation was placed at the end of the ‘Fabio Mauri Retrospettiva a luce solida’ (Fabio Mauri Solid LightRetrospective), curated by Laura Cherubini and myself, underscores the models’ methodological scope, affirming their authority beyond a merely instrumental function, in accordance with the artist’s own recognition of their importance. Such ‘rehearsal’ materials were a key element of Mauri’s method: dissecting the social and individual processes wherein reality – regarding the exhibition’s context and, pre-emptively, the reality of the characters or historical events Mauri’s works and exhibitions so regularly portrayed – could be transformed into a dramatic and narrative fiction with the power to enhance viewers’ critical understanding of reality.

Each model was not only a miniaturisation, but also a real-time verification of Mauri’s research and method. He used these models to adopt meticulous preparations for ‘staging’, ensuring that an exhibition’s structure aligned with a dynamic, expanded scenario across four dimensions (the three spatial dimensions plus the fourth, time) in which to actively involve the viewer.

Paying meticulous attention to all design components, Mauri effectively conceived each exhibition as a live performance, a coalition of works that unfolded not in the museum’s white cube but on a hypothetical theatrical stage or film set. It would be erroneous to separate his works and exhibitions from his exhibition designs: they allow us to understand the significance with which he imbued not just the works but their arrangement. The artist’s preparations beckoned and invited the audience to engage as co-authors, as is the case in theatre or cinema. Indeed, as these models consistently reveal, works must alter their ‘role in the comedy’ (materials, scale and position with regard to other artworks) in accordance with the exhibition – that is, in compliance with spatiotemporal and audience contexts.

It follows that Mauri’s models are more than mere working tools: much like his critical essays, they form a condensed version of the artwork, exhibition and context (museum + audience), connecting up the various elements of his artistic inquiry: visual arts, theatre, cinema, literature, philosophy, psychoanalysis, politics and studying public communication/propaganda mechanisms. These miniatures fully convey the dramaturgy and expository narrative of Mauri’s work, in which his use of stage objects, technical equipment, audio-visual media for projection, and the systematic practice of creating scale architectural models transformed the final works and exhibitions into performative analyses – conducted live and in real-time – or, alternatively, served as ‘open rehearsals’ to test the status of artworks and exhibitions, specifically, their efficacy in fostering critical and empathetic audience engagement.

Repeatedly presenting and revealing ‘behind the scenes’ details (models) of the story entrusted to works and exhibitions is definitive proof of the artist’s consciously self-reflective method, showcasing a concern that goes beyond the merely aesthetic to the ethical, to doing justice to the very function of art as a Teatrum Unicum Artium, ‘restoring plausibility to existence, which is implausible’. ¹  Paradoxical as it may seem, for Mauri, dramatic and narrative fiction activated his works and exhibitions. He involved audiences not by deceiving them, but by fostering awareness, responsibility, a willingness to respond to what is, in effect, a paradox: fiction is not unbelievable (implausible); reality itself is. History, its ideologies, its forms of communication and propaganda – the artist’s major themes – were incredibly (implausibly) violent, deceitful, unreasonable and, ultimately, inhumane. In his meticulous application of the scenic model, Mauri is a radically humanist artist, diligently seeking to reveal through fiction the truth that systematically manipulated historical reality persistently denies us.

An Initial Chronology and Taxonomy of the Models

Mauri made his first (twin) prototype of a work in 1968 for the sculpture Pila a luce solida (Torch of Solid Light). In its earliest form, photographs show it both horizontally and vertically (the arrangement may be identified in part thanks to the nearby presence of a small advertising placard, ‘Ovomaltina dà forza!’ [Ovaltine gives strength!]). It consisted of an actual torch connected to a cardboard tube, mimicking the torch beam with a piece of cardboard extending horizontally onto the ground. An alternative version – its stand signed ‘Fabio Mauri Pila a luce solida Prototipo 1968’ – was wholly fashioned out of white-painted, lathe-shaped, wood.

Heralding a line of inquiry that progressed through the projection Schermi to the functional mechanisms and three-dimensional realm (projector + audience + screen) of the projection itself, even in this initial prototype Mauri’s focus was not solely on the gradual and methodical definition of the artwork per se, but on meticulously replicating its effect on onlookers, using the prototype to understand the potential impact of the projection beam spread brightly across the floor.

The first small performance-related model harks back to 1971, for Che cosa è il fascismo (What is Fascism), visible on page 5 of the inaugural issue (1 November 1973) of Der Politische Ventilator, a periodical edited by Achille Mauri, devoted to his brother’s early performance acts (1971–73). Besides two images of the miniature, ²  the magazine included the title of the action, the date and location of its presentation (2 April 1971 at Safa Palatino Studios, Rome), subdivisions of areas for actors and the audience envisioned in the action, ³  and contributions by other individuals to the overall project execution. ⁴

Alongside the detailed enumeration of situational details, the fact that this model was published in the magazine offers us a preliminary endorsement of the ‘Mauri method’, specifically, the acknowledged importance of scale models in his methodology. The addition of fixtures on the back for wall mounting, as though the model were an artwork, together with the title (lower left) and artist’s signature (lower right) labels, render the artefact a potential three-dimensional Schermo, similar to certain pieces that the artist began creating in 1958. These feature overhangs from the original two-dimensional surface through the incorporation of veils and frame-structures (especially in the versions Una tasca di cinema [A Pocket of Cinema], 1958, and Schermo con pubblico [Screen with Audience], 1962), as well as objects borrowed from the realm of cinematic communication or function (e.g., Sinatra or Marilyn, 1964).

In 1977, Mauri made a model for Lezione di inglese (English Lesson), a theatrical work (conceived as a language class) performed at the Teatro Stabile in Rome, before travelling to ORFT-Office de radiodiffusion-télévision française, and the National Gallery of Canada in Montreal. With its mobile stage elements kept in a case, it prefigured the notion of ‘travelling’ models – made to be dismantled and carried as hand luggage, necessitating the same care in transit as is usually reserved for artworks. This concept was replicated for the models that appeared in Mauri’s solo shows at the Kunsthalle in Klagenfurt (1997), Studio National des Arts Contemporains at Le Fresnoy-Lille (2003) and at the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome (2008).

In 1980, Mauri commissioned a model – the last before he began working with his long-term collaborator, the theatre-set designer Claudio Cantelmi – for the Gran Serata Futurista 1909–1930 (FuturistGrandSoirée1909–1930) action, performed that year at the Teatro Comunale in L’Aquila by pupils and teaching staff from the Academy of Fine Arts. The performance was enriched by input from Toti Scialoja and Maurizio Calvesi, and featured vocal concert artist Joan Logue, ballerina Hilary Mostert and maestro Antonello Neri, who played musical works by Silvio Mix and Luigi Russolo. This and other Mauri actions playfully deployed expressive theatre vernaculars, and the model took on the appearance of a miniature stage set.

Among the first models that Cantelmi crafted is one from 1989 for a planned staging of Schermo nero-muro (Black-Wall Screen). Despite being only a design concept, the model was meticulously detailed, with parquet flooring, wooden doors and perspective accentuated by sidewalls positioned at an angle to the central wall, as in a theatrical backdrop. One of the three Schermi also featured two tiny bulbs attached to a battery via an electrical wire, allowing them to be turned on and off. This model was created post factum for the work showcased at the ‘Altri lavori in corso’ (Other Work in Progress) exhibition at Galleria il Campo in Rome in 1988, consisting of a wall mural and canvas. Accompanied by Mauri’s written instructions, it was supplemented with two ‘post-designs’ on adhesive black paper and pencil on opaline paper. These additions show how the model’s ‘open rehearsal’ extended beyond the work’s debut, inviting thought about potential future forms.

Cantelmi made two models in 1990: the first for the theatrical piece L’isola (The Island) (1964); ⁵ the second was a prototype for Macchina per forare acquerelli (Watercolour Punching Machine), presented along with the final work at Studio Bocchi in Rome that year, as well as appearing in the catalogue as a stand-in for the (otherwise missing) final work. The pantograph used in both model and work is a tool that sculptors use to scale up the minuscule proportions of a model to the magnitude of the resulting sculpture. Putting a pantograph front and centre was symptomatic of Mauri’s exploration of the symbiotic link between preliminary prototypes or models and finished artworks. Within the gallery space, the synergy between the artwork and its model – particularly the first one Cantelmi made – was highlighted by the model being displayed on a tripod pedestal, making it look like a small-scale sculpture. This presentation illuminated ‘the pantograph’s emblematic role: the misalignment in scale between the artworks and the objects underpinning their creation’. ⁶ The disproportion concept was further accentuated by a deliberate juxtaposition of the artwork with its corresponding model in an exhibition setting.

Models for the monographic booth at Arteroma ’92 showcased miniatures, made that year, of lithographs from the Manipolazione di cultura (Manipulation of Culture) series (1974), and the installation piece Cucina o La questione tedesca (Cuisine or the German Question) (1990). The model for Artefiera ’93 was also made around this time, featuring miniatures from the ‘Studenti’ (Students) exhibition, depicting a breaktime in the classrooms of an envisioned art academy. A counterpart model for the 1993 presentation at Galleria Elleni in Bergamo was also developed, in which the miniatures were crafted from lead, mirroring the materials used in the actual exhibition. A model was made in 1993 for Mauri’s personal room at the Venice Biennale, showcasing installation elements from the 1971 Ebrea (Jew) action and Muro Occidentale o del Pianto (Western or Wailing Wall), the work specifically designed for that particular Biennale. This was envisioned as a four-metre-high wall, intricately assembled from interlocking leather and wood suitcases in various sizes. A comparison of the model with images of the final installation in Venice reveals that the latter piece was completed in the gallery space, since the model could not be used to determine the maximum height of the work to ensure that it was proportioned for the room’s actual dimensions. Rather than being a flaw that shows up the limitations of the miniature, this affirms the artist’s grasp of how each phase of his method collectively prefigured the final layout.

In 1994, the first Mauri retrospective, ‘Fabio Mauri. Opere e Azioni [Works and Actions] 1954-1994’, opened at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome, curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev and Marcella Cossu, marking a significant milestone in the artist’s career. A large-scale model – the most extensive yet, at approximately four by four metres – was assembled for this event, replete with miniature replicas of works and performance-related installation components. Unlike all the other models, this one was not completed before but rather during exhibition setup, as part of a step-by-step decision-making process. It was ultimately encased in glass sheets, elevating it to the status of an artwork in its own right. ⁷ Following two large rooms recreated for the staging of Che cosa è il fascismo and a presentation of Mauri’s Schermi series, architect Aldo Ponis’s exhibition pathway design incorporated a space set aside solely for showcasing the model. This space functioned both as a navigational aid for visitors, and an initiation into the artist’s investigative approach, transparently conveying the myriad choices that shaped conceptualisation and realisation of the first Mauri retrospective.

While all of the other models were confined to layouts for a limited number of rooms (sometimes just one), displaying a limited number of works, this particular model’s multiplicity of rooms and works required a greater variety of materials to create it, ensuring that it accurately represented all types of work on display: wood, cardstock, printed paper, lead (and other metals), plastic, fabric, glass and salt, along with Poliplat. ⁸ This was, after all, Mauri’s greatest modelling work/action, the masterpiece of all his models.

At the artist’s behest, a documentary video was made of the exhibition (filmed by Dante Lomazzi and edited by Studio Pontaccio), which methodologically begins its path through the exhibition with a view of miniature versions of the exhibition rooms in the model, preceding the rooms themselves. In 1994, the same year as the big retrospective show, the model took centre stage at the first ever exhibition dedicated solely to the artist’s models, ‘Modelli da “Opere e Azioni 1954-1994”.Un omaggio dell’Abruzzo a Fabio Mauri’ (Models from ‘Works and Actions 1954–1994’. A tribute from Abruzzo to Fabio Mauri), ⁹ staged by the University of L’Aquila at the Church of Santa Caterina, Forte Spagnolo, L’Aquila. The model for Mauri’s personal room at the Smith’s Gallery London group show dates back to that year, featuring miniatures of the work Manipolazione di cultura, exhibition elements and the large paper work associated with the Ebrea action.

In 1995, Mauri and Cantelmi designed a stage model for the Hyde ed Eva (Hyde and Eva) theatre performance by Patrizia Cerroni’s I Danzatori Scalzicompany. This model features a simulated city that, in the actual set design, was made from packaging boxes (some reinforced with crates so that they could be worn), lampposts and road signs, all of which faithfully appear in the model. At the start of the show, a dancer entered the stage carrying the model, which stayed on stage for the rest of the show, in a play on the ‘out of scale’ concept that Mauri had previously thematised in displaying the prototype for Macchina per forare acquerelli. A replica of the model was made after the original suffered irreparable damage.

In 1997, as with the 1994 model, the model for the ‘Das Böse und das Schöne. Male e Bellezza’ (Evil and Beauty) retrospective at the Kunsthalle in Klagenfurt, had detachable walls (making it easier to transport), adorned with miniatures of all exhibited works. Similarly, the 1998 ‘Picnic o il buon soldato’ (Picnic or the Good Soldier) exhibition model for Galleria La Tartaruga in Castelluccio di Pienza consisted of three sections, each one representing a room, that could be taken down and reassembled.

The Klagenfurt exhibition model conveys the sense of rehearsals – performed on the scale model before setting up the actual works in the room – used to verify some unconventional methods of arrangement not seen in previous exhibitions. An example of this is the historic small-scale work, the first Schermo-Disegno (Screen-Drawing) from 1957, which was installed high up on a wall, requiring a prominent ladder for viewing. Featured in the model, not only was this ladder precisely replicated in the exhibition, but it was set up on a chair, serving more as a ‘counter-rehearsal’ than an ‘open rehearsal’.

In 1999, models were created for the ‘La meva cosina Marcella i la guerra civil’ (My Cousin Marcella and the Civil War) solo exhibition at Sala Montcada, Fundación La Caixa in Barcelona, and for the personal space at the ‘La Ville, le Jardin, la Mémoire’ (The City, The Garden, Memory) group show at the Academy of France, Villa Medici, Rome. In this second instance, the artist commissioned miniatures of all of the paintings by his great-grandfather Roberto Bompiani, displayed, gallery-style, on two lunettes opposite one another. This included miniatures of a self-portrait of Mauri’s forebear on an easel, and a family sofa on which four generations of intellectuals and artists (including Luigi Pirandello, Willem de Kooning, Ettore Petrolini, Alberto Moravia and Pier Paolo Pasolini) sat, surrounded by hundreds of family members and acquaintances, their names engraved on a plaque at the centre of the couch. The model’s philological accuracy extended to the miniature of the room-encircling long wall text, which lists the artist’s lost relatives, providing summaries of their biographies, and concluding with the phrase ‘È ragionevole essere morti’ (It’s Reasonable to be Dead).

Three models were made in 2002: one to showcase the Mauri works in the ‘Ipotesi di una collezione’ (Hypothesis of a Collection) group show at Galleria Comunale d’Arte Moderna in Rome, featuring a miniature bathtub – Bagno, 1990 – an installation element for ‘Interno/Esterno’ (Internal/External), which made its debut at Galleria Anna d’Ascanio in Rome, before going on to appear at Galleria Carini in Florence, made out of a folded sheet of paper. Another model was for La Scalinata Fantastica (The Fantastic Staircase), a competition entry for the Ugo Bassi staircase in a Rome urban redevelopment, designed by Mauri and architect Ponis and featuring ‘counter-stairs’ for night projections, akin to an open-air theatre or cinema; the project was never realised. They also made a model that, although conceived for the group show ‘L’incognita dell’altro:Forme dell’alterità nell’arte Contemporanea’ (The Unknown of the Other: Forms of otherness in contemporary art)at the Sala dei Templari di Molfetta, ended up defining a template for the layout of Mauri’s Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) work, which premiered at the Galleria Mara Coccia, Rome, in 1985.

Two rather different, related models date to 2003. The first was for the ‘Istantanea di un duca morto’ (Snapshot of a Dead Duke) one-man show (Galleria Nuova Icona, Venice), which was part of the Biennale. Showing an outline of Amedeo d’Aosta lying on his deathbed, ever-present in all gallery halls, it gave the impression that the architecture itself was elongated and drawn out, evoking the mysterious threshold that opens up at the moment of our passing between life and death, between history and eternity, to face potential moral (or perhaps religious) justice. As if it were some ancient wall painting or tapestry, the prototype of the work was also displayed in the exhibition, documenting both the overall design and how it was divided up into distinct elements, depending on room dimensions and the interference of doors and windows. That same year, Mauri and Cantelmi also made a large ‘travel’ model for the ‘L’Ecran Mental’ (The Mental Screen) retrospective at Le Fresnoy-Lille, small enough to be dismantled and, with all its individual miniaturised elements, fit into a shoebox.

After the model for the 2007 ‘Schermi’ exhibition at Galleria Milano, the artist personally supervised creation of his last three models the following year. The first was a prototype for an unrealised work, Taiping Fei (aereo della pace) (Taiping Fei [Peace Plane]), an airplane divided in two by a wall, conceived to coincide with the Beijing Olympic Games. ¹⁰ No model exists for the analogous work Muro d’Europa/La barca (Wall of Europe/The Boat), which made its debut in 1979 at the De Appel Foundation in Amsterdam: a wooden boat sundered in the middle by a brick wall (the first time this work was miniaturised was as a 1994 retrospective model). The second and third models from 2008 were made for two solo exhibitions. The first was ‘L’universo d’uso’ (The Universe of Use) at Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, featuring images and texts on the wall, and long strips of text on the floor, alongside other works such as some Schermi, Warum ein Gedanke einen Raum verpestet?/Perché un pensiero intossica una stanza? (Screens, Why does a Thought Poison a Room), 1972, Manipolazione di cultura, and Insonnia per due forme contrarie di universo,Manipulation of Culture, and Insomnia for Two Contrary Forms of Universe), 1978. The model, with miniaturised versions of the works, was placed in a foldable box with straps and a suitcase handle for easy transportation. The second solo show was L’insolubile (The Insoluble) at the Galleria Martano in Turin. The model featured miniaturised versions of digital projections onto objects, of the work Warum ein Gedanke einen Raum verpestet?/Perché un pensiero intossica una stanza?, and of a large black-and-white image/carpet created for the Inverosimile (Far-fetched) installation at the 2007 collective show ‘Not Afraid of the Dark’ at Hangar Bicocca in Milan ¹¹ ), at which Manipolazione di cultura was also exhibited.

A model was made between these two exhibitions for Mauri’s one-man room in the group exhibition ‘Fatto Bene! La collezione del Centro Pecci’ (Well Done! The Pecci Center Collection) at the Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci in Prato. The walls in the model were painted black, as they would be in the exhibition, featuring a pedestal for the projector and the projection screen, as well as miniaturisations of Warum ein Gedanke einen Raum verpestet?/Perché un pensiero intossica una stanza?, some prints placed on the floor (on aluminium in the exhibition), documentary images of the Che cosa è il fascismo action, and a large colour image/carpet dominated by a portrait of Adolf Hitler against a red background (Gebt mir vier jahre Zeit [Give Me Four Years] ¹² ).In Prato, a large colour image/carpet was partially rolled out in the centre of the floor, topped with a digital projector that beamed documentaries of the artist’s ideology-themed actions onto a video screen.

Model production ceased after Mauri’s death in May 2009. An exception is Autre nave (Other Ship), remade in 2014 on the occasion of the Tra/Between-Arte e Architettura exhibition at the MAXXI in Rome and originally executed in 1968 for the Milan Triennale together with Piero Sartogo, Antonio Malavasi, Gino Marotta and Furio Colombo: a vast, dual, space-time concept that envisioned immersing viewers in expanded projections on a semicircular structure, between two facing screens, simulating weightlessness and firing people’s imagination ahead of the moon landing. That year, Mauri’s installation Luna (Moon) captured these emotions and ideas at the ‘Teatro delle Mostre’ (Theatre of the Shows) exhibition, devised by Plinio De Martiis for Galleria La Tartaruga in Rome. Mauri’s first work prototype, Pila a luce solida, his initial foray into exhibition design models, suggests this architectural collaboration may have sparked his interest in model-making.

The Renaissance Architectural Model as Theatre of Knowledge (Replicable on a ‘Pinhead’)

In a 1994 retrospective catalogue dedication, Mauri defined Claudio Cantelmi ¹³  as a ‘mischievous miniaturist’. In his text for to the volume Giotto e aiuti... , ¹⁴ he described him as ‘capable of staging the Sistine Chapel on a pinhead’. Cantelmi played a co-starring role in the above chronology and taxonomy. After studying stage design at the Accademia di Belle Arti dell’Aquila, where Mauri taught the Aesthetics of Experimentation, Cantelmi started looking for work in theatre or cinema. Mauri had seen what Cantelmi could do in a model he made for the set design of Eugène Ionesco’s one-act play Les Chaises (The Chairs) (1952). They began working together in 1988, when during experimentation for ‘Interno/Esterno’ (1990), Mauri set out to simulate the interior plastering of a house to display his own furnishings and household items, along with white paintings with the raised text, ‘Senza Arte’ (Without Art), and his work On the Liberty (another inscription, in electrical cabling hooked up to a liberty lamp). Cantelmi provided the formula for the mixture (water, gesso di Bologna and vinavil) that designers so often use on film sets to simulate plastered walls. However, the Senza Arte series in the ‘Interno/Esterno’ exhibition primarily used wood primed for panel painting. Not long after this, Mauri pointed to a desk and told Cantelmi he could start work there the following day. Model-making to help conceive and produce major exhibitions became central after Cantelmi joined the artist’s studio team.

Practically demonstrating the close relationship between theoretical reflection and practical realisation in Mauri’s exhibition conception and production, Cantelmi created his first models using materials already available on desks or worktables in the studio. A distinctive feature of his work regarded proportions: architects adopt precise scales such as 1:25 and 1:50 for architectural models. Consciously setting aside these standards, Mauri simply held out his hands to indicate the size of the miniatures he wanted. Cantelmi measured the space between Mauri’s hands, and fashioned his miniature artworks to those proportions. Without ever becoming completely standardised, over time, the ‘Mauri measurement’ became closer to standard proportions as he and Cantelmi got to know each other better.

Cantelmi recalls that during preparations for his 1994 Rome retrospective, Mauri brought in a videocassette and a copy of the ‘Rinascimento da Brunelleschi a Michelangelo. La rappresentazione dell’architettura’ (Renaissance from Brunelleschi to Michelangelo. The Representation of Architecture)exhibition catalogue, ¹⁵  and photographs from a visit to the Spanish Castle in Aquila, showing him scrutinising a large wooden model of a theatre. Mauri subsequently instructed Cantelmi to use these materials as inspiration for the next model, and indeed all future models they would create together. ¹⁶

Although later models continued to be made out of technical and polymeric materials typical of architectural modelling, ¹⁷  Mauri’s reference to old Renaissance wooden models, especially related to theatre, may have been inspired by the vision for an illustrated documentary atlas (Bilderatlas Mnemosyne) that art historian Aby Warburg had unveiled at the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome, in 1929. The work, which remained incomplete, was intended to map out figurative memory, the mnemonic persistence of European civilisation, thereby perhaps indicating the principles behind Renaissance architecture’s constructive rationale. A similar ideal intellectual model was conceived by sixteenth-century humanist Giulio Camillo (also known as Delminio, 1480–1544) in his utopian Theatre of Memory (or Wisdom). Inspired by the theories of Vitruvius (De architectura) and Giordano Bruno’s ideas, and anticipating the structure and function of eighteenth-century Enlightenment encyclopaedias, this ideal architectural structure was capable of archiving all human knowledge and its relationship with the universe in forty-nine sections, corresponding to a complex system of mnemonic associations and iconographic references. The miniature cosmos was described in Delminio’s posthumously published treatise Idea del Theatro (1550) and apologetic pamphlet Discorso di M. Giulio Camillo in materia del suo theatro (1552). Humanist Viglius van Aytta (Latinized as Viglius Zuichemus, but commonly known as Viglius) told Erasmus of Rotterdam that a miniature version had actually been made, and was even practical. Taking the form of an ‘artificial mind and soul’, in this ‘anima equipped with windows … all things that the human mind can conceive and that cannot be seen with the bodily eye may, after being subject to careful consideration, nonetheless be expressed through certain bodily symbols in such a manner that the observer instantly perceives through their eyes everything that would, otherwise, be hidden in the depths of the human mind. And it was precisely this corporeal perception that led him to name it a theatre.’ ¹⁸  Revisiting this definition and comparing it with Mauri’s declarations on his models, we may even be tempted to associate it directly with the artist’s models and practice, with the radical humanism that rendered his ideas and ideologies not abstract, because they generated tangible consequences. The fiction of the theatre made them live again in the present, rendering us, the audience of a true Theatre of Memory, critically aware, and hopefully, ready to take responsibility.

Conclusion: From Flashback to Flashforward. Mauri’s Model-making

Via the corpus of these theatrical and cinematic-inspired models, Mauri devised a palimpsest for a research method with Renaissance roots, affirming human capacity to give form to, narrate and share that which is ‘concealed in the depths of the human psyche’. He also paved the way for the research methods of later generations of artists and curators, reflecting on the past as in a flashback (to historical events and figures like Nazi-fascism), while projecting toward the future in a kind of flashforward (envisioning characters and events of an unfolding saga), thereby underscoring the critical nature of the present. Interjecting the beholder into the present moment of the work/action became a decisive factor, one in which spaces and times, facts and interpretations, causes and consequences all played their part.

By the 1990s, artists and curators had become more engaged in staging work and exhibitions, infusing them with both spatial and temporal dimensions, with dramaturgical and narrative forms capable of transforming and affecting relationships with and responses by the audience. If Mauri’s model-making is part of an artistic practice self-defined as critical staging, then subsequent artists have drawn their own conclusions from this, incorporating it into their personal practice.

Adopting the form of ‘open rehearsals’ in his overall research pathway, Mauri’s model works help crystallise an understanding and an approach that lends their creator an aura of foresight. This may help clarify why his contemporaries possibly overlooked or undervalued the artist and his models. Moreover, it enables us to engage in a retrospective appreciation of them as the early adoption of a methodology critically engaged not just with the scenarios outlined in our interaction with the ‘society of the spectacle’ as posited by Guy Debord, ¹⁹ or the systematic removal of an objective and collective historical memory, as has occurred in postmodern culture – both of which Mauri tackled – but also with emerging phenomena shaped by new digital sensibilities like AI, immersive VR-virtual reality, metaverses and collective intelligence.

Most importantly of all, through the radical and honest application of his method, and thus in the unadorned precision of one of his models, Mauri championed an intellectual philosophy that, in its assertion, allows us still to believe – through staging and open rehearsals – in the duty of human awareness and action regarding such scenarios, whether past, present or future.

The End? ²⁰