Fondazione Giancarlo Ligabue

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Almost 40 years have passed since the first issue of the Ligabue Magazine. Look backing at the contents page and seeing alongside the title of the magazine "Year 1, Number 1, October 1982", is still a thrilling experience and sets us thinking back over all those years and the issues published. It conjures up the meetings ahead of the publication of each article, talks, discussions, decisions and a sense of apprehension that preceded every deadline. All that work carried out during what was arguably the most exciting and prolific decade for the Ligabue Research Centre's scientific activities brought great satisfaction. Now in 2020, a year of profound changes in the way culture and knowledge are disseminated, we have decided to make all that work available to our readers and anyone else interested, free of charge. The topics in the first 25 years of publication were incredibly wide-ranging: Venice, its history, traditions and fascinating lesser-known aspects; remote peoples, scattered and hidden in often inaccessible places; archaeological treasures; ground-breaking discoveries; and journeys on all the continents through the often unspoilt nature of wonderful places on our planet. The articles penned by great experts and journalists were illustrated with splendid images by great photographers or reporters.
If you’d like to re-explore with us many of the fundamental stages of our history, follow the instructions on this page and for a year you will get the chance to travel all over the world without leaving home. We look forward to seeing you in the Reserved Area!

THIS WEEK N.6
Year 1985

In the history of the progress of civilisation, we shouldn’t envy great leaders or the creators of wealth so much as artists and scientists, who in their lifetimes have had the good fortune to forget that they are earthbound creatures and so express their genius. Such people surely include Donald Johanson, a member of the Giancarlo Ligabue Foundation Scientific Committee who, while walking on a path in the Afar Triangle (Ethiopia) "glanced over his right shoulder" and discovered the first bone fragment of Lucy's skeleton, upsetting the entire paleoanthropological worldview at that time. We go with Giancarlo Ligabue to meet newly discovered pygmy ethnic groups in the Indonesian province of New Guinea, and then into mud and straw villages clinging to the rocks of the Bandiagara Escarpment (Mali), home to the Dogon, one of the poorest peoples in the world. Next stop is Afghanistan where some excavations have brought to light for the first time urban centres, civilisations and art from the 3rd Millennium BC: for example, the Bactrian statuette on the cover of this issue (exhibited in the exhibition Idols in Venice in 2018), is now known worldwide as the “Ligabue Venus” for its rarity and beauty. Those who are fascinated by photography will certainly enjoy exploring a series of unusual, beautiful images of Ruwenzori, a natural paradise on the border between Uganda and Congo or the Makar Sankrandi Festival in India, which celebrates the change of season with a multitude of soaring, fluttering colourful kites. There are also some aerial photos of Venice and illustrations that highlight the "attraction of opposites". Lastly, we have stories of “science and magic" featuring amulets, which even today are thought to have apotropaic powers, and the complicated pharmaceutical preparation called theriaca. Created in the second century BC as a remedy against poisons, it became a kind of panacea for all ills. Log-In Subscribe

STAY TUNED!

Every Monday, for 50 weeks, you can download a different back copy of Ligabue Magazine. We have started with number 1 from October 1982, and we will continue in chronological order through 25 years of unique, original narratives and expert individual accounts. See you next Monday for another issue!