The casting of the “East Wind” placed in the center of St. Peter’s Square reminds us of the richness of content, sometimes even hidden, present in the great works that belong to our history.
The “Wind of Levant” was placed at the center of the Holy See pavilion at the Beijing Horticulture Expo, which opened on April 29, 2019.
Remembering an event through the technique of bronze casting attaches importance to the context, emphasizes intentions, places a value on things that become symbols of a meeting and possibly an agreement, and finally, highlights a desire for rapprochement between two parties.
The reproduction of this portion of St. Peter’s parvis, was not in the whole an artistic work but mainly a technical one.
The pavement and marble oval of the east wind, were acquired with a 3D scanner provided by the L’Aquila Academy of Fine Arts.
The scan was then processed into 3D modeling, and thus a perfect reproduction of the original was achieved.
Made into parts, they formed separate elements of the whole, individually fused into the earth, then reassembled and welded together.
The bronze was obtained by the sand casting technique.
Thus, that reproduced portion of the Wind Rose ideally brought St. Peter’s Square to Beijing.
In the International Horticultural Exposition, millions of visitors ideally walked through the center of St. Peter’s Square like an “East Wind.”
In the original in Rome, the pavement has a marble circle running all around the obelisk that is the central axis of the square.
About 10 meters from it, the “Wind Rose” can be seen, indicating the origin of the winds. The arrangement of the pavement with the Wind Rose dates back to 1817 by abbot astronomer Filippo Luigi Gilij, who was also the author, among other things, of lines in the pavement on the other side of the square that transform the Vatican obelisk into a giant sundial. In addition to being an astronomer, Abbot Philip Louis Gilij was also an expert naturalist.
In the Vatican he had a garden where he grew, solely plants from South America. In 1789, he had written a book on botany, “Phytosanitary observations over some exotic plants introduced in Rome.”
So, nothing more appropriate, to provoke attunements with the Chinese people in the context of the 2019 Horticulture Expo
