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MIRABILIA GRAPHICA
The Micrographic Calligrams of Ignazio Muligino
Museo Galileo, June 18 – October 18, 2026
On June 18, Museo Galileo will inaugurate an exhibition dedicated to a rare and extraordinary work: a calligram created by harnessing the potential of the microscope to reveal a script that is otherwise invisible to the naked eye. The artwork is the Madonna and Child by Francesco Ignazio Muligino, a calligrapher active between France and Italy at the end of the 17th century. The technique of execution is astonishing and still partly shrouded in mystery: within the figures of the Child and the Virgin, in a space of just about 30×20 cm, an entire prayer book is fully transcribed.
Muligino’s calligrams belong to the genre of “mirabilia graphica”, which is linked to the early spread of the microscope perfected by Galileo. The instrument gave a powerful impetus to the naturalistic investigations of the Accademia dei Lincei, inaugurated by the famous study on bees that the Academy’s founder, Federico Cesi, dedicated to Pope Urban VIII Barberini.
In addition to the Madonna and Child, the exhibition features three other calligrams by Muligino along with several precious original works: Federico Cesi’s Apiarium and Matthäus Greuter’s Melissographia, an 18th-century edition of the Officium Beatae Mariae Virginis, Chérubin d’Orléans’ La dioptrique oculaire (1671), and a selection of microscopes and optical devices from the 17th and 18th centuries.
Furthermore, a touchscreen station will allow visitors to explore the Madonna and Child in full detail, offering the opportunity to magnify the image and decipher the micrographic text that gives shape to it.
The exhibition, curated by Filippo Camerota and realised with the support of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze, will be open until October 18.
