The Bestiary is part of Piero Viti’s photographic and pictorial universe. For this project, he draws on the world of the “Bestiarium”, a generic title for medieval didactic works in which the description of the “natures” and “properties” of animals is used to propose the religious and moral teachings of the time. Bestiaries are part of the typical medieval conception of nature as a ‘symbol’ of deeper truths taught by God through the beings he created.

In this project, which began in 2017 and is still ongoing, Piero Viti tackles this theme through play, denouncing the modern drama of a world that has become ‘plastic’, by introducing models of small animals borrowed from the world of childhood. He patiently collects these little plastic characters from toy shops and, under his “photographic brush”, clothes them in a bronze skin.

Staged in a set designed especially for them, they pose in the same continuous light that Piero Viti favours in all his photographic creations.