They do not tell fairy tales, but they may enchant you as they have enchanted me.

These rare, beautiful, and enigmatic books found their way to me and appeared on my birthday in 2015. I felt an embodied knowing that they belonged to me, but it took a long time for me to unlock their secrets.

I carefully unfolded the pages, holding my breath with each turn as I anticipated another luminous image appearing, as well as a riven seam that might collapse at my touch.

I sorted and shaped the collection of images and began to dream of the possibilities.

These Sleeping Beauties were waking up.

Before the turn of the 20th century, with pen and brush in hand, unknown artists and architects were dispatched to palaces, churches, and piazzas to capture Italy’s magnificent decorative and industrial arts. This “documentary” was gathered into a twenty-year collection celebrating Italy’s unification and dazzling diversity.

The artists often did not portray the entire object, altar, room, or façade. Rather, they captured glittering architectural fragments, textile and floor patterns, gates, candelabra, furniture details, and ancient symbols, opening a portal into an illuminated era that the world still venerates.

This mosaic of fragments invites our imagination to fill in what is not shown. It is also an invitation to visit these ancient places, since many are still there waiting to be admired and remembered.

Some of the precious works and places drawn or painted no longer exist, having been lost or destroyed by world war bombings. These images are witnesses to the past and guardians of remembrance.

They were crystallized onto elegant but fragile papers that are turning to dust, hidden in dense volumes for decades, almost discarded, and completely forgotten.

The original pages are in places torn and weathered by time. These “blemishes” have not been mended and show through the pages intentionally to honor their long journey.

They hold timeless messages of beauty and light that were destined to inspire new works of art.