The site for Fernando Melani’s art was the world, not in the earthly but in the cosmic sense: that shapeless mass without history, broken up into micro-episodes and charged by infinite expansion. From 1945 until his death last year at age 78, Melani focused on the uninterrupted flows of energy that only become concrete—have perceptible existence—in the surface of reality: as, in a near analogy, in the individual conscience. And these things had no form or style but were simply there, full of an intimate beauty which held a primitive power and energy.

Long isolated in his studio/house in Pistoia,