With the death of Arnaldo Pomodoro, an artistic era of Michelangelesque, Berninian, and Canovian depth concludes; the era of the two duets, that of the Cascella and Pomodoro, a point of reference for the season of Italian sculptors of the 20th century, announced by conspiracy of opposites of Bistolfi and Medardo Rosso, made clear by the grand and precise signature of Arturo Martini, Francesco Messina, Giacomo Manzù, but also by the effervescent figures of Carmelo Cappello, Pietro Consagra, Umberto Mastroianni. And the list could go on indefinitely, without stopping at our contemporaries — Nunzio, Mainolfi, and a few others — who are, however, stars escaped from a lost universe. I met Arnaldo many decades ago: cordiality, consideration, but never from him a chemistry of friendly and sympathetic sharing, like that which sparked with his brother Giò, equally great, so much so that people continue to say “the Pomodoros,” just as they say “the Cascellas” for Pietro and Andrea. Of the flood of works made by A.P., each of which tells its own story, I like to mention the obelisk commissioned in 1939 for the EUR district of Rome and dedicated to Guglielmo Marconi, one among many.
While I wish to focus on my revelation by his work, given by the project for the Urbino cemetery: an expansion of the historic site that, instead of rising upwards, burrowed into the earth with a crucial rift, which blurred the lines of verticality and horizontality with a spatio-temporal metaphor of prophetic beauty. And then the Porta Regum of Cefalù Cathedral, of whose scientific committee, for a time, I was a part. A door, so to speak, in reality a triumph – comparable with the necessary changes which were begun by Andrea Pisano and finished in the Donatellesque style of Ghiberti in Florence. A supreme spectacle, provided by a marvellous self-supporting door, neither invasive nor disturbing to the historical artefact, with a sphere in the centre inspired by that placed on the tomb site of Frederick II in Palermo Cathedral, representing his authority as King of Jerusalem as heir of John of Brienne. The result? Nothing. Bureaucratic and pseudo-cultural quibbles decided on a polished, cobbler-style restoration of the old door of no historical or stylistic importance (and so they say) in order not to contaminate the art, which is contamination par excellence – but this is evidently not widely known. A.P. grieved greatly over this and became irritated. And I, with him!
KLESSIDRA | EDITED BY FRANCESCO GALLO MAZZEO
Italiano 
English (UK)