LAUDATE ET BENEDITE

**PRAISE AND BLESS**

Presentation of the book on the public works of Maria Bonaduce and Giovanni Morgese, held concurrently with an exhibition of the related designs.

**Under the patronage of:** the Municipality of Terlizzi, the De Napoli Art Gallery, and FeArT Soc. Coop.

**Presentations by:** Bishop Felice di Molfetta, emeritus bishop of Cerignola–Ascoli Satriano, and Father Michele Amorosini, Director of the Office for Cultural Heritage and the Diocesan Museum.

**Institutional remarks by:** Michelangelo De Chirico, Mayor of Terlizzi, and Daniela Zappatore, Councillor for Culture.

Presentation of the book and opening of the temporary exhibition: **Friday, October 23, 2026, at 6:00 p.m.**, at the De Napoli Art Gallery, Corso Dante Alighieri 9 – Terlizzi (Bari).

The temporary exhibition will be open to visitors from **October 23 to November 29**.

**Opening hours:** Wednesday to Sunday, 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.; Friday to Sunday also from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

The catalogue-book *Laudate et benedite* by Maria Bonaduce and Giovanni Morgese brings together works of sacred and religious art created over approximately thirty years in churches, parishes, convents, monasteries, and for monuments in several Italian squares.

The works range from painting and sculpture to stained-glass windows, fully respecting the character of each location and the historical and artistic context of every setting, while balancing the clients’ requirements with the preservation of the artists’ creative freedom.

The method used to document the entire body of work was to present the individual settings and the works installed there, following not a chronological order but one determined by compositional considerations.

In his presentation of the volume, Bishop Father Felice Di Molfetta writes:

> “*Laudate et benedite*—two quotations taken by Maria Bonaduce and Giovanni Morgese from Saint Francis’s *Canticle of the Creatures*—constitute a true key to understanding, which the two artists wished to offer to those preparing to engage, with emotion and wonder, with what they have produced over the course of their fruitful thirty-year artistic activity in the field of sacred and religious art… They speak of light.
>
> And is this not perhaps the task of the present catalogue: to show that they have placed their creative ability at the service of a noble mission—one that I would not hesitate to describe as a mission of visual evangelization?”

Running concurrently, for a period of forty days, there will be an exhibition of the preparatory sketches for the public works in the Blue Hall of the Art Gallery.

**For information:** 375 852 3051 – 347 650 2478
info@pinacotecadenapoli.it – morgese.bonaduce.art@libero.it
Web: www.pinacotecadenapoli.it