The exhibition ‘Gianfranco Mello, La Luce e il Colore’ represented a true journey into Mello’s pictorial universe through eleven paintings, true frescoes on canvas, testifying to a technique honed after years of intense and continuous work.
Venetian but Florentine by adoption, from a very young age it was in our city that Mello took his first steps in art until he was able to establish himself and fully express his wonderful vocation.
It was therefore dutiful that in our city, in the civic home of the Florentines, we had the opportunity to recount his precious artistic experience.
His works speak to us of a poetics of suggestion and study and of a highly refined technique that is well expressed in these eleven modern frescoes.
Mello’s relationship with nature is exceptional, resulting in vivid and evocative paintings, a courtly but at the same time thoroughly modern brushstroke. His is an outstanding artistic personality that has been able to depict the beauty of Florence and the Tuscan landscape at its best.
It was a source of pride for us to host this exhibition in Palazzo Vecchio, curated by the Mello Foundation , which is itself a treasure trove of beauty to be discovered.

Alessia Bettini
Deputy Mayor and Councilor for Culture of the Municipality of Firenze
Florence, July 2023

DEAR GIANFRANCO,
The unshakable faith in your work has brought us until here.
Think, we are in the Sala d’Arme of Palazzo Vecchio which we have visited so many times together, and this room practically intact since 1425 and above which rests the Salone dei Cinquecento, today it houses your paintings.
Thousands of people watched, rejoiced, thought, photographed, carried on the world the image of your paintings and of the Veneto-Toscana culture they are permeated with.
Together with many dear people I made my dream come true.
Thanks forever Gianfranco.

LUCI April, 2023