- BY ISSIMO
- March 7, 2024
Mirabilia: a journey through Italy’s sublime landscapes
Artist Silvia Camporesi’s book is a captivating voyage of discovery
Vincent City, Guadagnano (Puglia)
”My goal is to propose a new perspective on Italy, a perspective that shows, lovingly, places that have a character of exceptionality. I realised that these places are often known in the province where they are located, but few people know them outside the province,” says artist and photographer Silvia Camporesi on her motivation for creating her book Mirabilia.
It’s true, so much of Italy’s magic can be discovered in wondrous landscapes, special places, and marvels of nature awaiting those who venture beyond the tourist trails and the big-city attractions. Thanks to the curiosity, vision and photographic lens of Silvia Camporesi, we can now discover 99 of these natural and architectural wonders across every Italian region through a series of remarkable landscape photographs.
ISSIMO recently spoke to Camporesi, who shared exclusive insights into her research and discovery journey behind this extraordinary book, which is one of those special treasures for the coffee table you’ll want to dive into head-first, over and over again!
Making Mirabilia - a voyage of discovery
Camporesi first had the idea to shoot the series of Mirabilia images when she was travelling to abandoned towns and villages around Italy for another book project (Atlas Italiae, published in 2015). In 2017 she decided to explore the Mirabilia theme as a stand-alone body of work, proceeding to photograph what she calls “unusual places, quirky museums and astonishing architecture” she discovered on her travels.
An undertaking of several years that has seen the artist travel Italy from north to south, and east to west (several times over!) making Mirabilia was a voyage of discovery for Camporesi in every sense of the phrase. Her development process included undertaking extensive research of each Italian region through multiple sources including tourist guides, books, online material and interviews in order to identify this series of unique places to capture, ensuring her book represented a “comprehensive overview of Italian wonders in all their forms and facets,” as she tells ISSIMO.
La Scarzuola, Montegabbione (Umbria)
La Scarzuola, Montegabbione (Umbria)
Camporesi first had the idea to shoot the series of Mirabilia images when she was travelling to abandoned towns and villages around Italy for another book project (Atlas Italiae, published in 2015). In 2017 she decided to explore the Mirabilia theme as a stand-alone body of work, proceeding to photograph what she calls “unusual places, quirky museums and astonishing architecture” she discovered on her travels.
An undertaking of several years that has seen the artist travel Italy from north to south, and east to west (several times over!) making Mirabilia was a voyage of discovery for Camporesi in every sense of the phrase. Her development process included undertaking extensive research of each Italian region through multiple sources including tourist guides, books, online material and interviews in order to identify this series of unique places to capture, ensuring her book represented a “comprehensive overview of Italian wonders in all their forms and facets,” as she tells ISSIMO.
Camporesi’s curious lens
From the rugged and remote, to the sculptural, surreal and even bizarre, the geography and diversity of places captured in Mirabilia show that Camporesi is certainly not afraid of a challenging project. In fact, this series of images is an epic storytelling feat that immerses us in a journey through these sublime sites that seem like scenes out of a film or a surreal dream.
We see as much of Camporesi’s own enduring curiosity and autobiographical journey in these landscape photographs as we do the places themselves, and we become deeply intrigued by their stories of origin, and how she discovered them.
“I like challenges, big projects, and I am not interested in single images. I studied philosophy at university and have always considered photography as a tool to make an idea visible. I have always been attracted to everything that is unusual, little-known, bizarre, in general, everything that goes beyond known paths,” she says.
“Italy is famous for its incredible beauties that fascinate millions of tourists from all over the world every year. I realised that even we Italians often travel miles abroad to see special places, of which we have some many beautiful examples here in Italy,”
– Silvia Camporesi
La casa volante, Castelnuovo Magra (Liguria), 2015
From windswept wonders to floating architectural marvels
While we won’t give too much away about the special places featured in Mirabilia, we will say that you can expect to be awe-struck by feats of nature, architecture and man-made marvels that can be found in unsuspecting locations across each Italian region. They’re certainly not the kinds of places that will appear on most people’s ‘must-see’ Italy travel list, and this sense of mystery and discovery is exactly why we love this book so much.
From the optical thrill of those striped archways inside the Rochetta Mattei fortress in Bologna, to an enormous imposing Pan di Zucchero rock rising like a giant from the sea in Masua (Sardegna), Camporesi leaves no stone unturned in her voyage to capture these remarkable wonders across the country. But is there one place that she finds particularly fascinating from her Mirabilia journey?
From windswept wonders to floating architectural marvels
La casa volante, Castelnuovo Magra (Liguria), 2015
While we won’t give too much away about the special places featured in Mirabilia, we will say that you can expect to be awe-struck by feats of nature, architecture and man-made marvels that can be found in unsuspecting locations across each Italian region. They’re certainly not the kinds of places that will appear on most people’s ‘must-see’ Italy travel list, and this sense of mystery and discovery is exactly why we love this book so much.
From the optical thrill of those striped archways inside the Rochetta Mattei fortress in Bologna, to an enormous imposing Pan di Zucchero rock rising like a giant from the sea in Masua (Sardegna), Camporesi leaves no stone unturned in her voyage to capture these remarkable wonders across the country. But is there one place that she finds particularly fascinating from her Mirabilia journey?
“One natural site that particularly surprised me was in Casorzo (Piemonte), where there is the bi-tree or Bialbero as it’s called: a cherry tree that naturally grew on a mulberry tree. This is a quirk of nature, and it means two different flowerings, and two different types of foliage,” she says.
Inspiration is an understatement! Mirabilia is a revelation that ignites our curiosities with a new perspective on Italy’s most remarkable landscapes and places of intrigue that are waiting to be discovered. In fact, we’re planning our upcoming trips around their precise locations so we can ensure we see them all!
