“He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the Universe”
Marcus Aurelius
“From up here the Earth is beautiful, without borders or boundaries”
Yuri Gagarin
Venus in the SKY is a painting depicting Botticelli's Venus, the soul of the Earth, depicted in a contemporary interpretation of the absolute icon of the Italian Renaissance. A fusion of different worlds, distant from each other yet somehow linked. The search for the infinite in space, and for eternal beauty in the Renaissance, the revival of literature and the arts, sciences and in general of culture and civic life, and a more immanent philosophical and ethical conception. The operation began on 22 March 2018. Only some of the work (compatible with the need to limit the astronauts’ materials) started with the Russian orbiting spacecraft ISS 5556. The project had been suggested one year earlier, at the ceremony to hand over a work by Rossano Ferrari to the Russian state, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the first Sputnik space mission. In fact, it is the only painting that has been to the International Space Station (ISS) to date. Isn't it exciting enough to know that an object we can touch with our own hands has been in orbit? The fascination with the Universe, the Moon and the stars has been a factor in every form of art across the ages. Mankind immediately realised there was a need to search the heavens for possible correlations between events in human life and cosmic phenomena. All the way back to the Neolithic era, constellations have been named as a result of this need. To memorise the stars, names were given to groups of them, alluding to aspects and elements of agricultural and pastoral life. In the Middle Ages, the Firmament referred to the perfect peace of Heaven, the abode of God, the angels and the saints. These days, science defines the Universe as everything there is in space and all it contains, i.e. material, energy, the planets, stars, galaxies and the content of intergalactic space. There has never been a single poet, painter, scientist or writer who has not fantasised about the Universe at least once in their life, in their work or solely in their imagination. The most frequently asked questions still remain unanswered, and the mystery is what continues to make us feel so small and insignificant. The short 20th century – known as such for all the events fitted into it – witnessed mankind’s most fanciful fantasies about the Universe coming true. Journeys into space have made the impossible possible. The first object launched into orbit around the Earth was Sputnik 1, by the Soviet Union in 1957. It was followed by the first flights with animal crews. The famous dog Laika – launched into space in the second Earth orbital flight on 3 November 1957 – was the first living being to enter orbit, or at least the first superior living being, considering the fact that micro-organisms were definitely present on Sputnik 1. Also under the Soviet programme, on 12 April 1961 cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first human to travel into outer space. On his return, he was ‘baptised’ cosmonaut (sailor in the Universe), whereas when Alan Shepard went into suborbital flight, the United States coined the term astronaut (sailor among the stars). Both terms come from Greek and now refer to people who have visited space in person. Works dating back to this period include Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, an extraordinary success in translation all over the world, and the visionary Frank Herbert’s Dune cycle, contemporary with 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick. In 1969, David Bowie released Space Oddity, featuring his best-known character Major Tom, who lost contact with Earth and drifted into the infinite. Meanwhile, Star Trek kept millions of viewers glued to the screen, in a pop-culture opening-up that would become definitive in 1977 with the creation of the highly successful Star Wars franchise.