The Italian Cultural Institute of San Francisco is pleased to host Furio Rinaldi, curator of the exhibition Botticelli Drawings at the Legion of Honor, the first exhibition ever dedicated to the drawings of Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli (ca. 1445 – 1510).
During the event, the exclusive video Botticelli: Rythm of the Line will be screened. Bringing a new perspective on the beloved Renaissance artist, the video reveals the central role that drawing played in Sandro Botticelli’s art and practice. This short documentary takes viewers through the streets of Florence, where the artist lived and worked, to the Uffizi galleries, home of Botticelli’s most striking masterpieces. The story is told by Furio Rinaldi, Jonathan K. Nelson, art historian at Syracuse University in Florence, and Cecilia Frosinini, art historian at the Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence. These voices speak in chorus to give us an original narrative that illuminates Botticelli’s life, process, and legacy. Masterfully directed by Khamisi Norwood, this film was produced by Antonia Smith and Patricia Buffa, Director of Digital Strategy, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF ).
Free Admission | Registration required
Furio Rinaldi is curator of drawings and prints at the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, the Fine Arts Museums’ department of works on paper (the largest collection of works on paper in Western United States). An expert on 15th- and 16th-century Italian drawings, particularly the schools of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo, he has published extensively on the subject in The Burlington Magazine, Master Drawings, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art Journal. At the Museums, he organized the Legion of Honor exhibition Color into Line: Pastel from the Renaissance to the Present (2021–2022). His curatorial experience includes positions in the department of drawings and prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where he also served as a Samuel H. Kress Fellow, and the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan. Rinaldi holds a Ph.D. in art history from the University of Rome and an MA and BA in art history from the University of Milan. He received a post-graduation Fellowship at the Fondazione di Studi di Storia dell’Arte Roberto Longhi, Florence, and, in 2022, he was appointed David and Julie Tobey Fellow at Villa I Tatti, the Harvard Center for Renaissance Studies.