WIKI LOVES MONUMENTS (LEDITIONS, PP 244, 30 EURO)
Wikimedia Italia's new book Wiki loves Monuments is out on December 12. It celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Italian edition of the online photo contest of the same name, the largest in the world, which involves professional and amateur photographers to document the monuments on Wikipedia.
The volume, edited by Iolanda Pensa and conceived by the Baringo communication laboratory in collaboration with the TOMO TOMO graphic studio, has collected images and encyclopedic texts from Wikipedia to pay homage, promote and protect the Italian cultural heritage through the 100 winning shots of the top ten editions.
The result is a very rich database of cards dedicated to monuments and an original collection of links that bring apparently distant places and topics closer together.
It happens, then, to admire the panorama of the Val d'Orcia - image among the finalists of the 2018 edition - and to feel the desire to set off to discover the Via Francigena, to delve into the historical figure of Federico Barbarossa or the mummy of Zagreb , all terms cited in the same encyclopedic entry.
The sea storm of Polignano a Mare - winning shot of 2022 - invites you to explore the Amazonomachy, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and to re-admire the great actress Monica Vitti;
while the Fountain of Neptune in Bologna - photo from the 2012 edition - recalls California, Maserati and the art critic Gian Carlo Argan.
The book aims to demonstrate, therefore, how it is possible to develop new knowledge starting from the shared contents of Wikimedia project volunteers.
"This book collects the winning photographs of ten years of competition - said Iolanda Pensa, president of Wikimedia Italy - but in reality, even more central to the meaning and significance of Wiki Loves Monuments, are the over 180,000 images produced in Italy that they did not win prizes but they turned the red dots of the monuments not yet photographed into blue, thus contributing to free documentation.We dedicate the book to the thousands of Italian volunteers - continues Iolanda Pensa - who write, edit and add photos to Wikipedia, Wikimedia every day Commons, Wikidata and all Wikimedia projects documenting heritage on OpenStreetMap maps".
