The summer of 2003 was exceedingly hot in Rome, the air heavy, motionless, as if it were hostage to the sun and its scorching rays. This was a fitting context for the debut of a young artist hailing from the heat of Palermo, in southern Italy: Manfredi Beninati, who had recently moved to the Italian capital. Thinking back to that scalding and indolent summer, one can still easily recall Beninati’s early paintings and their reception: From the start, his work was endowed with a special quality determined by its ability to suspend traditional concepts of time and space. The artist still plays