“La cura”, Battiato’s masterpiece becomes an illustrated album

«La cura», Franco Battiato’s masterpiece, an explosion of passion and feeling, of philosophical and dreamlike suggestions, has become an album: refined pages with dreamy, intimate, delicate tones thanks to the illustrations by Sonia Maria Luce Possentini. It is entitled «La cura» and is published by Einaudi Ragazzi, and will be presented on Sunday 16 July at 6 pm in the garden of Casa Lajolo in Piossasco (Turin) for the review «Bellezza tra le riga», included in the program of «Luci sui Festival » and promoted by the Turin International Book Fair. This year’s program is dedicated to “care” and the title, “Handle with care,” revolves around this concept. Meetings and readings to save oneself “.

In the book the verses that leverage the therapeutic power of music and words, resorting to philosophical suggestions (“We will travel together the paths that lead to essence”), exotic (“I was wandering through the fields of Tennessee / how I got there who knows” ) and dreamlike (“Faster than eagles my dreams / cross the sea”) are accompanied by refined and dreamy illustrations. On the one hand the refinement of Battiato’s verses, on the other the elegant mastery of the details of the tables for a game that is sometimes simple, sometimes enigmatic, in the name of beauty.

The author

Painter and illustrator, Sonia Maria Luce Possentini, graduated in art history from the Dams of Bologna, has received awards in Italy and abroad, including the 2017 Andersen Award for best illustrator, the Pippi Award and the Silver Award for Illustration Competition West 49 in Los Angeles. You have taken part in numerous exhibitions, and signed covers for Italian and foreign publishing houses including Fatatrac, La Margherita Edizioni, Kite Edizioni, Mine-Edition, Grimm Press, Giunti, Mondadori and Sonzogno.

He teaches Illustration at the International School of Comics in Reggio Emilia and at the University of Padua. For Edizioni Curci you illustrated the book “Fate e fantasmi all’Opera” by Cristina Bersanelli and Gabriele Clima. In his rich curriculum, the book written with Mario Boccia, the poignant “The flower girl of Sarajevo” (2021, Orecchio Acerbo) cannot be mentioned.

The meeting

The meeting is free to enter. Those wishing to visit the historic residence, which dates back to the mid-eighteenth century, can book their visit before the meetings: 8 euros (with a guided tour), 6 euros (with an independent visit via audio guide). Contacts and reservations: [email protected] – ​​333/ 3270586.

Lajolo house

Casa Lajolo, a mid-eighteenth century historic residence in Piedmont, was inherited in the mid-nineteenth century by the Lajolo di Cossano counts, an ancient family of Asti origins, and acquired its current layout around the mid-eighteenth century, a date confirmed by the external structure as well as by the decorations of some ceilings. It is characterized by a garden organized into rooms: the gravel square with the collection of citrus fruits in pots, the Italian garden outlined by borders and sculptures in boxwood (Buxussempervirens) and flanked by an English grove delimited by seven Taxus baccata, and follow, olive and fruit trees. The kitchen garden with vegetables, medicinal herbs and an orchard is an example of a hortus conclusus, the fulcrum of the dissemination and teaching activity.