Maurizio Cannavacciuolo stands out among Italian artists because of his extremely elaborate style of painting. His pictorial surfaces are densely covered with intricate decorative patterns against which figures stand out; these figures, in turn, are overlaid with other figures or outlines of figures, whose interiors are saturated with decorative motifs different from those painted on the backgrounds. No space remains free, no interstice left empty. Cannavacciuolo's canvases are like puzzles. The viewer's eye must follow a contour to grasp forms otherwise lost in the superimpositions; one must