The periodic table

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[coordinamento redazionale, Emanuela Belloni

The catalogue raisonné on Marcello Morandini (Mantova, 1940) represents the most comprehensive and up-to-date publication ever to be produced on his works of art. Edited by Marco Meneguzzo and subdivided into separate yet complementary sections, the catalogue gives a clear and in-depth description of Morandini's art from 1964 to the present day and is the result of the meticulous job carried out by the Marcello Morandini Foundation to catalogue, archive and authenticate his works. Comprising over 500 pages, the volume begins with a review by the editor and an essay by Serge Lemoine, a French historian who has followed Morandini's artistic career from the start. The second section contains a critical anthology of texts written for the artist's numerous exhibitions and which document his artistic research. Over the years, Morandini has explored different kinds of themes and studies on the movement of space (torsion, tension, expansion, superimposition), translating them into the world of geometry by using a bi-dimensional and tri-dimensional language and applying mathematical certainty to developing the work, in accordance with the inescapable conceptual premise whereby everything that surrounds us can be considered 'liveable'.

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Giulio Magli

This book provides the first complete, easy to read, up-to-date account of the fascinating discipline of archaeoastronomy, in which the relationship between ancient constructions and the sky is studied in order to gain a better understanding of the ideas of the architects of the past and of their religious and symbolic worlds. The book is divided into three sections, the first of which explores the past relations between astronomy and people, power, the afterworld, architecture, and landscape. The fundamentals of archaeoastronomy are then addressed in detail, with coverage of the celestial coordinates; the apparent motion of the Sun, Moon, stars, and planets; observation of celestial bodies at the horizon; the use of astronomical software in archaeoastronomy; and current methods for making and analyzing measurements. The final section reviews what archaeoastronomy can now tell us about the nature and purpose of such sites and structures as Stonehenge, the Pyramids of Giza, Chichen Itza, the Campus Martius, and the Valley of the Temples of Agrigento. In addition, a set of exercises is provided that can be performed using non-commercial free software, e.g., Google Earth or Stellarium, and will equip readers to conduct their own research. Readers will find the book an ideal introduction to what has become a wide-ranging multidisciplinary science. -- Back cover.

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John Baldacchino, textual narrative

*Avant-nostalgia* brings together textual and visual narratives scattered around four themes: knowledge, memory, touch, and return. The text starts where the image ends. The image originates where the text is fulfilled. These are after-images of a reading of art and literature on the grounds of polity, history and geography. The narratives that emerge within the visual arts and literature chart the grounds of polity. Such grounds manifest a history that is ‘contemporary’ — in that it takes serious account of ‘our’ time — where democracy and freedom must be regarded as moral imperatives. Equally, grounds express a geography that is specific to physical and ontological spaces, where: (a) location emerges from the choices that are intended to facilitate a visitation of art; and which (b) provide grounds for a discussion of matters like *anamnesis*, nostalgia and *aporia*. The discussion retains a ‘fragmentary’ format by way of excusing the discussant from epistemological compartments.

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Andrew Lawson

GARDENING. First published in 1996, this Pimpernel Classic edition has been completely redesigned and includes a new foreword by Andrew Lawson. Using his artist's eye and scientist's training, distinguished garden photographer and writer Andrew Lawson shines a new light on using colour in the garden. This book shows myriad ways to put colours together, and demonstrates the extraordinary power of colour to change the sense of space, to suggest coolness or warmth and to evoke different moods. The basis of creating harmonizing and contrasting schemes is explained and illustrated with dramatic examples. All the major schemes are supported by keyline drawings giving full planting details. In addition, illustrated plant directories, arranged by colour and flowering season, provide cultivation details for over 850 plants, enabling you to assemble the right plants for your chosen scheme and to carry that scheme through the year.