NOVELLA ARIANNA (homage to Ariadne of Leonardo's Belvedere) FOR THE SUPER YACHT LANA OF SHIPYARD BENETTI

The Shipyard Benetti represents Italian excellence in the art of building extra luxury yachts, where every technical feature, every aesthetic element, every single detail is executed in the pursuit of perfection.

For years the company has been synonymous with Made in Italy craftsmanship, a rare and elegant skill that can be seen in one of its latest masterpieces: the super yacht Lana, a 107-metre giant with a glamorous soul.

Lana is one of the most exciting yachts on the nautical scene because of her pioneering technology, but also because of her sophistication in style and design. It is no coincidence that this boat has already won the “Yacht of the Year” award dedicated to yachts over 270 feet, during the last edition of the World Yacht Trophies in Cannes.

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Not only that, Lana has already had world-famous guests. On the occasion of her birthday, singer Beyoncé together with her husband Jay-Z stayed on Lana, surrounding themselves with luxury, comfort, top-notch Italian design and art.

This marvel of the seas allows you to immerse yourself in the extreme splendour of design, but also in prestigious art themes. Among these, the mythological subject of Ariadne stands out thanks to the work Novella Arianna by Oreste Ruggiero, a sculpture of a female figure that gives life to a game of “reflections” (thanks to the polished steel typical of the author’s art) and “reflections”.

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The opera is a contemporary interpretation of the famous Greek myth, whose story has always fascinated us. Ariadne helped Theseus against the Minotaur, betraying her father Minos – albeit for a noble purpose – but received in return a less noble gesture of gratitude from Theseus who, having made her flee from Crete to Athens out of love with him, abandoned her on the island of Naxos.

But on that island, Ariadne’s desperate cry was even consoled by a god, Dionysus, who made her his wife.

Ariadne and Dionysus were symbols of happiness, as Lorenzo the Magnificent recounts in his poem Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne: “How beautiful is youth, that nevertheless flees! Let him who wants to be happy be happy: there is no certainty of tomorrow. This is Bacchus and Ariadne, beautiful, and ardent for each other: because time flees and deceives, they are always happy together”.

The story of Ariadne therefore began with a sea voyage and the same fate befell Oreste Ruggiero’s sculpture Novella Arianna, which crosses the seas on Shipyard Benetti’s Yacht Lana. 

The myth of Ariadne has often inspired artists of all times (famous are the paintings of Titian, Guido Reni, Pelagius Pelagius) and so Oreste Ruggiero also drew inspiration from it – like the artists of the Renaissance and subsequent eras – in homage to the Drawing of Ariadne in the Courtyard of the Belvedere Statues by Leonardo da Vinci (Codex Atlanticus, f770v, Biblioteca Ambrosiana), which the master depicted during his stay in Rome in about 1515.

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The author’s proof is the protagonist in the exhibition “Novella Arianna e Arianna del Belvedere di Leonardo” and  “Amore Diagonale-Armonia degli Opposti”, at the Leo-Lev Exhibition Centre in the city of Vinci, the land of Leonardo. 

In addition to the artist’s proof, the exhibition shows Novella Arianna in four artistic black-and-white photographs taken by the famous photographer Aurelio Amendola, author among others of portraits of De Chirico, Marino Marini, Andy Warhol and photos of works by Michelangelo and Canova.