Opera magazine
2025-04-11
Vertigo. Zenithal Photographs by Franco Zampetti
Until August 31st, a new photography exhibition curated by Vincenzo Circosta and Giuseppe Giari will be on display at the exhibition space of Libreria Brunelleschi.
On Wednesday, May 7, 2025, at 3:00 PM, the exhibition "Vertigo. Zenithal Photographs | Franco Zampetti" will open at the Libreria Brunelleschi (Piazza San Giovanni 7, Florence). The event is organized by the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore and curated by Vincenzo Circosta and Giuseppe Giari.
The opening will feature remarks by Vincenzo Vaccaro, board member of the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, photographer Franco Zampetti, and the two curators of the exhibition.
This is the fourth exhibition held in the Libreria Brunelleschi's gallery space, dedicated to the monuments of the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore—this time seen through Zampetti’s spectacular zenithal images.
The exhibition offers visitors the opportunity to immerse themselves in the meticulous vision of Franco Zampetti—an architect, photographer, and profound connoisseur of architectural history. Since 2008, the artist has produced over 820 zenithal photographs, transforming architectural space into visions suspended between geometry and spirituality.
On display is a selection of seven large-format images taken by Zampetti between 2010 and 2019, focused on the monumental complex of Florence Cathedral. The subjects include the Baptistery with its matronea and dome mosaics, Giotto’s Bell Tower with an interior view, and the Cathedral itself with the counter-façade, apse, and Sacristy of the Masses. One final image captures an external view between the Cathedral’s façade and the Baptistery, in the area known as the “Paradise.” The exhibition also features a video showcasing fourteen zenithal images, organized chronologically according to the construction sequence of the Cathedral’s monuments.
Zampetti’s images, taken with a camera specially designed by the artist himself, merge planimetry and perspective into a single, perfectly centered viewpoint. They capture the grandeur of sacred architecture in a circular format inscribed within a square, inspired by Vitruvian ideals of perfection. “An iconographic testimony suspended between the earthly and the divine,” says Vincenzo Circosta, curator of the exhibition.
“Franco Zampetti’s photography might initially appear to be a sterile form of documentary photography. But it is not. The perfectly zenithal gaze of the photographer serves a humanistic purpose: the translation of planes from horizontal to vertical, the obsessive search for balance and harmony in lines and forms, the placement of monumental architecture—even when asymmetrical—within a circle inscribed in a square, in a Vitruvian format, all work to position us, the viewers, at the exact center of the image. This unusual perspective allows us to engage with and measure ourselves against the superhuman scale of sacred architecture.” — says Giuseppe Giari, curator of the exhibition.
“Franco Zampetti is not satisfied with conventional shots,” explains Vincenzo Vaccaro, board member of the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore. “With an uncommon vision, he transports the viewer to the center of the image. The breadth of the optical cone of his ultra-wide-angle lens surpasses the physiological limits of human sight, opening up new horizons. The camera he himself designed is built to capture the entire environment and expand space; the resulting image is transformed into a work of art that transcends architecture. The viewer, observing these images taken in sacred spaces, is seized by a sense of vertigo from the extraordinary vision perceived and is projected toward the infinite. The objective vision of architecture thus becomes a subjective experience, one that can be savored as pure poetry.”
The more than 820 zenithal photographs taken to date can be viewed on the website www.francozampetti.com.
For further information, you may contact the artist directly at: info@francozampetti.it