A Golden Night for a Spellbound Celebration. The 25th Anniversary of D’ORO Collection
In the heart of the Eternal City, the historic headquarters of D’ORO Collection opened its doors to celebrate the publishing house’s twenty-fifth anniversary. Villa Dino, nestled among the millenary memories of the Appian Way, hosted a radiant gala evening honouring a quarter-century of editorial experimentation, artistic vision, and the grammar of innovation.
The evening of 11 July also marked the debut of D’ORO Collection’s latest editorial work — a promise of new beginnings. Unfolded Ways, Rome as Never Read Before is a visual, artistic and literary itinerary in twenty-five stages, offering a reimagining of Rome through unexpected perspectives. The artworks of twenty-five internationally renowned artists — Franco Angeli, José Angelino, Matteo Basilé, Elisabetta Benassi, Silvia Camporesi, Paolo Canevari, Gea Casolaro, Christo, Iginio De Luca, Rä di Martino, Tano Festa, Bill Fontana, Nancy Genn, Auriea Harvey, Anaïs Horn, H.H. Lim, Renato Mambor, Vincenzo Marsiglia, Mimmo Paladino, Vettor Pisani, Quayola, Marinella Senatore, Federico Solmi, Mauro Staccioli, Helen Tóth — enter into dialogue with literary texts from different times and places. Within its pages unfolds the Red Theatre, which houses key visual elements from a sculptural work created specifically for the occasion by the international collective Squary Eyes: twenty-five paper theatres, scaled 1:100 to replicate the stage of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, compose the setting for a surreal, pop-infused fable set in a paper-built Rome. During the evening, the full installation was displayed inside the exhibition space of Villa Dino. Alongside it, the historical volumes of D’ORO Collection traced a visual atlas of the publishing house’s editorial identity.
A moment of extraordinary intensity illuminated the night, restoring the founding gesture of D’ORO Collection in its most essential form. Guests were invited to witness a live demonstration of the daily work that takes place in the publisher’s workshops. Before their eyes, the master artisans enacted a sequence of ancestral gestures handed down through generations: hand-sewing of the pages on a medieval frame, the creation of the iconic covers with hand-hammered copper on bronze matrix, and the application of 24-karat gold.
The deeper meaning of D’ORO Collection’s journey was expressed through the heartfelt speeches of its founder and CEO, Salvatore Giorgio Dino, and of Unfolded Ways curator Valentino Catricalà.
The evening of 11 July was both a proud celebration of a rare legacy and a promise: that for D’ORO Collection, the book will always remain a living work, in constant transformation. Every moment of this luminous night reflected the very essence of the publishing house — ancient gestures, books as the material form of thought, and a creative tension that reimagines the future. This is D’ORO Collection: a publishing journey begun twenty-five years ago, which continues today with the same care and dedication, in the ongoing search for a convergence between tradition and invention.
