Luigi Pasquini and Rimini: la più bella spiaggia del mondo

The summer periodical Rimini: la più bella spiaggia del mondo (1925–1929), published by Pro-Rimini, is an emblematic case study for understanding Italian seaside graphic design and visual communication of the 1920s, particularly that of Rimini. Founded and directed by the multifaceted intellectual, watercolorist, and woodcut artist Luigi Pasquini, the newspaper, printed in daily format by the Premiata Tipografia Commerciale, distinguished itself not only as a chronicle of the cosmopolitan and fashionable life of the Riviera, but also as a coherent project of editorial identity.

Although the editorial staff benefited from the graphic contributions of important illustrators, poster artists, and caricaturists of the period—including Alberto Bianchi, Giulio Cumo, Italo Roberti, and Gaetano Mariani—it was the direction imparted by Pasquini in his role as artistic director that defined the publication’s cultivated language and aesthetic character. In this capacity, the author did not limit himself to editorial supervision, but worked within the fields of applied, commercial, and satirical graphic design: he personally illustrated the views of period hotels and the sponsored accommodation facilities featured in the pages, and created numerous caricatures and internal illustrations.

The core of the visual design lies in the monumental masthead of the magazine, where the lettering reveals a rigorous geometric study. It may be hypothesized that Pasquini designed the typeface by constructing the individual letters within a standardized square; this device recalls the proportional canon of Renaissance treatises, evoking research into type design conducted by masters active within the cultural horizon of central Italy, not far from Rimini itself, such as Felice Feliciano, Luca Pacioli, and Geoffroy Tory. From a visual analysis of the masthead, it emerges that the author may have drawn upon the Roman epigraphic tradition, widely revived during the Renaissance; indeed, one seems able to identify the use of V in place of U, as well as the use of dwarf, enclosed, and ascending letters. These would constitute classical devices, here presumably re-employed in doubled letters and in the rhythmic intersections of characters within the subtitle, as well as in the adoption of the elongated I, visible in certain variants of the masthead updated at a later date. Roman punctuation marks, originally conceived as separators, are here graphically reinterpreted. This Romano-Renaissance heritage merges with a clear Liberty influence in the use of ornamentation and in the specific alchemy between illustration and typographic character.

This commingling of the ancient and the modern characterizes Pasquini's work. Although he did not consider himself a pure commercial poster artist, his rare production for seaside réclame testifies to a precise vision of visual and promotional narrative. In the 1925 sketch executed for the Pro-Rimini, the beach and the wooden platform are visible from an ideal terrace enclosed within the medieval lines of the Palazzo dell’Arengo, the fountain of the square, and a putto supported by the elephants of Sigismondo. The same approach is found in the 1927 sketch Riviera di Rimini, Panorama dall’arco, where the fornix of the Arch of Augustus frames sails and bathing activities, proposing the historical dimension as a magnifying setting for leisure, in sharp contrast with the contemporary bathers of Marcello Dudovich.

Joined to this production are other works, such as the 1925 poster for the Città di Pesaro, centered on the bird's-eye view of the coastline and the fountain in Piazza del Popolo, and the ironic Caricatura di Addo Cupi, a pencil parody of Dudovich's poster for that year's season. The objective appears to be that of reclaiming a tourist image linked to the city's architectures and monuments, contrasting the stereotype of the worldliness of the time. Pasquini's skill in engraving and illustration also emerges in his collaborations with the main local cultural magazines. For the institutional magazine Ariminum, for instance, he designed the woodcut for the cover with a powerful view of the Malatesta Temple, enriched by interventions in red tempera. The culmination of this language is achieved in the three-matrix polychrome woodcut for the cover of the single issue of Rimini. Sorrisi di spiaggia, where the monumental fountain and Adriatic sails are enclosed beneath the solemn profile of the Arch of Augustus. This capacity for color control is found again in 1930, in the cover for the work by Innocenzo Cappa, In lode di San Marino e della sua Repubblica: a polychrome woodcut with five matrices executed using the chiaroscuro technique, capable of restoring a profound visual feeling of suspension and love for his own land.

Bibliography / Sources:

Ferruccio Farina, L’estate della grafica. Manifesti e pubblicità della Riviera di Romagna 1893-1943, Silvana Editoriale, Cinisello Balsamo 1988

S. Cardellini, F. Lombardini, G. L. Masetti Zannini, G. C. Mengozzi, F. Urbinati, Storia di Rimini dal 1800 ai nostri giorni. Vol. VI: Vita balneare, giornalismo, teatro, sport, città e campagna fra Ottocento e Novecento, Bruni Ghini Editore, 1980

G. Milantoni, M. Masini, Il Novecento di Giulio Cumo. La vita, le opere, Editori Riminesi Associati, Rimini 2000

Annamaria Bernucci, Luigi Pasquini. Un cronista del pennello, Minerva Edizioni, Bologna 2018

Luigi Pasquini, Elvino Polverelli, Rimini: la più bella spiaggia del mondo, “Rimini: la più bella spiaggia del mondo”, Luglio 1925 – Agosto 1929. Biblioteca Gambalunga,  Rimini (FC)

Paola Magnaghi-Delfino, Tullia Norando, Le Geometrie ricostruite delle lettere capitali di Luca Pacioli, Laboratorio FDS - Dipartimento di Matematica - Politecnico di Milano, Milano s.d.

C. Ravara Montebelli, Luigi Pasquini. La vita e l’attività nel periodo sammarinese (1925-1932), Valori Tattili, 2012