Metting with the author Clambagio

The director of a publishing house is faced with a dilemma: to publish or not to publish the manuscript of the illustrious citizen Costantino Morelli, now deceased, at the risk of tarnishing his memory forever? The novel, in the form of a dialogic narrative, is about Morelli's falling in love with the artist Victor Vasarely, the father of Op Art. His passion for the figure of the great master overwhelms him to the point of driving him to the brink of financial catastrophe and suicidal despair. Only a fortuitous encounter with the artist Artemisia Vettori will inspire him to take a fraudulent action that will enable him to overcome his dramatic situation and to fly off to a life full of glory and honours, so much so that he will build a museum dedicated to his idol, which he will donate to his home town, Chieti. The fake world of art thus becomes the symbol of the fiction of human existence, of its inability to disentangle itself in the magnum sea of contemporary society. The finale will reveal the pleasure of a mocking and silent revolt against that world. Clambagio (an acronym for the author's four first names: Claudio, Amedeo, Battista, Giovanni) is the pseudonym behind which a commercial entrepreneur from Bolzano hides. A modern art enthusiast and scholar, he is the author and translator of several art catalogues, including Victor Vasarely's Incipit and G.R.A.V. and several novels.