Blake e la sua epoca. Viaggi nel tempo del sogno. La Reggia di Venaria, 31 October 2024–2 February 2025; Blake e la sua epoca, ed. Alice Insley

Abstract

Walking toward La Venaria Reale, the visitor was greeted by a poster featuring a Blake watercolor, Oberon, Titania, and Puck with Fairies Dancing, which embodied the theme of the exhibition—​journeys in the time of dreams—​set against the royal seat looming at the end of the street. Blake’s dreams took on a peculiar inflection in the grandiose architectural framing of La Venaria Reale outside Turin in northern Italy. This baroque palace embodies the Savoy family’s dynastic and territorial ambitions from the mid-seventeenth to the nineteenth century, leading up to the unification of Italy, which was completed in 1870. … Following the Fitzwilliam’s imagination of Blake’s German exchanges in William Blake’s Universe, Blake at La Reggia di Venaria was the first Italian retrospective, drawing on the Tate collection to seed his work in Italian public culture.