Art meets the mountains: a presentation of Cesare Pergola’s work on the Cammino dei Briganti takes place on Wednesday

The meeting point is at 9.00 am in the squares of Scanzano and San Donato. From there, two walking groups – made up of walkers and enthusiasts and led by Luca Gianotti, the creator of the Cammino, and Lorenzo Berardinetti, mayor of Sante Marie – will set off towards the sculpture, meeting up at 10.30 am with the artist. The arrival will be celebrated with a communal gathering and a small buffet featuring local specialities, prepared by the owners of the businesses situated along the route. It will be a special day to celebrate a route that has expanded and been revitalised this year, showcasing the most authentic and unique aspects of the areas it passes through.

The artwork is the culmination of a long and complex process made possible thanks to funding from the Abruzzo Region’s ‘Cammini’ call for proposals. The competition attracted twenty artists from all over Italy and beyond. The sketches were assessed by a distinguished jury comprising Luigi Nacci, Mariangela Mattia, Nando Nasi and Gianotti. The jury expressed great satisfaction with the high quality of the proposals, unanimously selecting the project by Cesare Pergola as the winner.

The installation forms part of a wider enhancement project that also includes the restoration of the ancient fountain and the construction of a small wooden structure, designed to serve as a daytime shelter and an emergency overnight bivouac. The winning work is situated on the border between the municipalities of Sante Marie and Tagliacozzo, and will, over time, become a new reason to stop, observe and experience the area through the language of art.

The sculpture, entitled ‘La carovana sul cammino’ (The Caravan on the Road), depicts a caravan led by a bandit guiding a mule. It is followed by two modern travellers and a group of wild animals typical of the Abruzzo mountains, including the eagle, the fox, the wolf, the chamois and the bear. The work is crafted from perforated Corten steel, a technique that lends it a sense of lightness and transparency, ensuring a delicate and harmonious impact on the natural landscape. The jury also commended the artist’s stylistic consistency, the hallmark of which lies precisely in the use of perforated materials that make his work unique and instantly recognisable.

Pergola, a 70-year-old architect and multimedia artist, originally from Limosano in Molise and living between Florence and São Paulo, Brazil. In Brazil, he founded and directed the Galeria Belvedere in Paraty and the International Festival of Contemporary Art, involving over five hundred artists.

His sculpture on the Cammino dei Briganti bears witness to a profound dialogue between the historical memory of the area and contemporary art, and offers every walker an extra sense of wonder to experience step by step.

“I immersed myself in the Cammino dei Briganti,” said the artist, “and I wanted to focus on tradition, on the interplay between the ancient and the modern, to bring out the very lifeblood of the area. The figure of the nineteenth-century bandit and the young man who loves walking stand side by side because they represent two sides of the Trail. I then enriched the whole piece with the local wildlife, and this made all the difference. The work has been interpreted and rendered in my own style and distinctive brushwork, based on a technique that hollows out the silhouette and dematerialises it. It is a process of subtraction rather than addition, which lightens the forms and allows them to interact and blend more seamlessly into the landscape, letting light and shadow filter through.”

17/08/2026