Oblong Contemporary Art Gallery is pleased to announce its collaboration with Forme nel Verde 2026 for the presentation of Gianfranco Meggiato’s IN ITINERE – L’Uomo Quantico in cammino. Un viaggio interiore lungo la Via Francigena.
Italy’s first and oldest environmental art exhibition, Forme nel Verde was founded by Mario Guidotti in 1971 and returns to San Quirico d’Orcia this year for its 55th edition.
Promoted and organised by the Municipality of San Quirico d’Orcia under the Artistic Direction of Carlo Pizzichini, this year’s edition focuses on the vision of Gianfranco Meggiato and his ability to place humanity at the centre, embracing the complexity of human thought and its power to shape the future.
The exhibition is accompanied by a critical contribution from Domenico Piraina, Director of Culture of the Municipality of Milan and of Palazzo Reale.
Meggiato’s works accompany an important anniversary: 1,150 years of the Via Francigena. The project brings together the ancient pilgrimage route, which extends for 3,000 kilometres from Canterbury to Rome through five European countries, and the visions of quantum physics, which radically transformed our understanding of reality, matter, time, and consciousness during the twentieth century.
San Quirico d’Orcia and the UNESCO-listed Val d’Orcia welcome Meggiato’s exhibition itinerary, beginning at the magnificent sixteenth-century Horti Leonini, where eighteen sculptures are presented: Verso la Libertà, Frequenze Auree, Concetti di Sincronicità Spaziale, Lo Specchio dell’Assoluto, Fumetti in cerca d’Autore, Sfera Sirio, Scorpius, Sfera Cuore, Sfera Acquarius, Disco Cabala, Sfera Atman, Cono Energia, La leggerezza dell’essere, Dancing in the Dark, Venere, Sfera Quantica, and Respiro Quantico.
The exhibition continues at Palazzo Chigi Zondadari, where a body of thirty previously unseen drawings by the artist will be presented in an international preview.
Within the historic centre, Attimo Fuggente is installed in Piazza della Libertà, Doppio Totem in Via Dante, and Uomo Quantico in front of the ancient Collegiata, a Romanesque church dating from the thirteenth century and one of San Quirico’s most emblematic monuments.
At the centre of the Cipressini circle stands Germinazione, a monumental six-metre-high sculpture. Like a seed of art, it celebrates the absolute beauty of the Val d’Orcia in one of the area’s most iconic and frequently photographed locations, situated on a small hill along the Via Cassia in the locality known as I Triboli.
Within the timeless landscape of San Quirico d’Orcia, a place of passage and contemplation for more than a thousand years, the physical journey becomes a reflection on humanity’s search for meaning while moving towards a destination.
In the ancient age of pilgrimage, as today, human beings crossed landscapes, villages, silences, and seasons to reach a sacred destination. Yet every authentic journey contains another direction, invisible and more profound: the journey towards oneself. The outward journey reflects a process of transformation within our consciousness. The destination is neither Rome nor a physical place, but the understanding of ourselves and our relationship with the whole.
Just as the observer is not external to a phenomenon but an integral part of it, the pilgrim does not simply pass through the landscape: the landscape also passes through the pilgrim’s mind and body. Every step changes the way we see, every distance becomes an inner experience, and every encounter brings transformation.
The Uomo Quantico, or Quantum Man, is a symbolic figure of our time: a human being who, amid the complexity of contemporary life, begins once again to consider their own presence in the world. In the quantum world, nothing appears separate; every particle exists as a relationship, a possibility, and a vibration.
The Quantum Man understands that knowledge is not simply the accumulation of information, but a living experience shaped by consciousness and awareness. Through works, images, sounds, and visions, the exhibition leads visitors along an itinerary that unites science and spirituality, perception and memory, and visible and invisible realities.
The Via Francigena becomes a metaphor for a universal passage and a dialogue between art, journey, and consciousness, revealing that every authentic pilgrimage is ultimately an inner and spiritual journey.
Gianfranco Meggiato’s sculptures exist in perfect harmony with this extraordinary landscape. The works embody the spirit of Forme nel Verde, celebrating forms within nature and uniting art and the natural world.
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