Giotto | The allegories of Virtues / Le allegorie delle Virtù, 1303-1305

The bottom tiers of the longer walls feature 14 allegories, in monochrome, symbolising Vices on the North wall and Virtues on the South wall.

The Vices are: Stultitia, Inconstantia, Ira, Iniusticia, Infidelitas, Invidia, Desperatio.

The Virtues are divided as follows: the four Cardinal Virtues: Prudentia, Iustitia, Temperantia, Fortitudo, followed by the three Theological ones: Fides, Karitas, Spes.

Each virtue and vice is embedded within a mirror-like marble frame.

The name of the vice or the virtue is written in Latin on top of each figure, indicating what these figures represent: the seventh day (the day between Jesus’s birth and the Final Judgement).

Temperanza e L'Ira

Paul Verlaine | Kiss! / Bacio! Rosa malva nel giardino delle carezze..

Kiss! Hollyhock in Love's luxuriant close!

Brisk music played on pearly little keys,

In tempo with the witching melodies

Love in the ardent heart repeating goes.

Sonorous, graceful Kiss, hail! Kiss divine!

Unequalled boon, unutterable bliss!

Man, bent o'er thine enthralling chalice, Kiss,

Grows drunken with a rapture only thine!

Jaroslav Seifert / George Grie | To be a Poet / Essere Poeta, 1983

To Be a Poet

Life taught me long ago

that music and poetry

are the most beautiful things on earth

that life can give us.

Except for love, of course.

Tomek Setowski, 1961: "Mind is a characteristic factory of dreams"..

Polish painter Tomek Sętowski was born in Czestochowa, where he is still residing and where his main gallery called Museum of imagination is located.

Extraordinary sensitivity that characterized him as a little boy could be seen as soon as he was only three years old when his first painting was created.

Had been developing his painting techniques for years, taking giant steps from local galleries to the top-rank exhibitions salons, and, at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Częstochowa Pedagogical University he gained knowledge of the history of art.

Kenneth Potter | Watercolor painter

American painter Kenneth Potter [1926-2011] was born in Bakersfield, CA.

Studied: San Francisco Academy of Art, Academie Frochot (Paris), Istituto Statale d'Arte (Florence); Member: Society of Western Artists; American Watercolor Society. Ken Potter is a third generation Californian.

He grew up in Northern California during the depression and began drawing regularly at an early age.

While living in Sacramento, he received art instruction through a W.P.A. sponsored program. As a teenager, he visited the 1939 World’s Fair art exhibit in San Francisco where he viewed works by many of the world’s greatest artists. He was particularly excited about modern works, especially the French modernists.

Gianni Bellini, 1965 | Figurative Mixed media painter

Gianni Bellini, italian painter, was born in Carmignano, Italy.

A self taught and talented painter, at just fifteen years of age, he started to partecipate in important extemporary, personal and collective art exhibitions in several cities always receiving wonderful reviews and many first place awards.

Marco Rossati, 1943 | Metaphysical Realism painter

Marco Rossati was born at Reggio Emilia (Italy) in 1943.

He studied at the "Istituto d’Arte" and at the "Accademia di Belle Arti" in Rome with Mino Maccari, Renato Guttuso, Franco Gentilini, Ferdinando Bologna.

He later taught at the same Academy.

In that time he met Giorgio De Chirico, whose art fascinated him since he was a child and becomes his pupil for several years.

Giuseppe Signorini | Orientalist painter

Giuseppe Signorini (1857-1932) was an Italian painter*, mainly of orientalist subjects.

He was born in Rome. He studied at the Accademia di San Luca, and then worked under Aurelio Tiratelli. He often traveled to the Paris Salon exhibitions, and was influenced by the styles and orientalist themes expressed by painters like Mariano Fortuny, Ernest Meissonier and Gérôme*.