39 years since Carlo Riccardi's Maxi Canvas in Piazza del Popolo in Rome.

Thirty-nine years have passed since that hot summer Saturday in 1986, when Carlo Riccardi, artist, photographer, and painter, wrapped the obelisk in Rome's Piazza del Popolo with one of his famous Maxi-Canvases. A unique artistic gesture, combining wonder, provocation, and civic engagement. The sudden and unexpected event of August 16, 1986, astonished Romans and tourists alike: many stopped, intrigued, while traffic police surrounded the obelisk to witness (and perhaps keep watch over) this unusual yet symbolically powerful operation.

Riccardi's goal was clear: to raise public and media awareness of the state of Italy's monuments and to encourage institutions to promote and protect the country's artistic heritage. A poetic and civic act that, even today, remains in the collective memory as one of the most iconic performances of contemporary Rome. A pioneer of Street Art long before the term "street art" entered common parlance, Riccardi had already brought his gigantic canvases to the squares of Italy and Europe. The movement he founded, "Art on the Way," transformed urban spaces into open-air galleries, without permanently altering the locations: traveling works, fleeting appearances that left the context intact but profoundly impacted those who saw them.

Among his most memorable performances: Piazza della Signoria in Florence; the Maxi Tela for John Paul II, unfurled in the Sala Nervi in the Vatican; the Cloister of San Domenico in Siena; the Teatro Impero in Terracina; the Raphael Gallery in Frankfurt; and exhibitions in Barcelona and Basel. In 1987, Rome welcomed more of his impressive installations: from Castel Sant'Angelo to Piazza Navona, from St. Peter's to the Foro Italico, and even to the beach at Ostia. Riccardi even exhibited underwater, in the sea off Ponza, and at international events such as the Rimini Meeting and the Milan Expo.

A total artist, born in Olevano Romano on October 3, 1926, Carlo Riccardi was not only a painter and performer, but also one of the first Italian photographers to document the history of our country. His archive contains over three million photographs, a priceless visual heritage. In the 1970s, he founded the Quinta Dimensione movement, with a manifesto signed by over sixty artists, including Pericle Fazzini, Emilio Greco, Umberto Mastroianni, and Franco Gentilini.

The symbol, a circle with two parallel lines painted with fluorescent paint, is still visible in the dark today. The message was powerful: "Bringing Man back to the center," combining anthropocentrism, cybernetics, and an astral vision of the human being. Returning to Piazza del Popolo in 2016, for the thirtieth anniversary of the first maxi canvas, Riccardi returned with the work "Diamoci una mano," created together with fifty artists and friends. On that occasion, too, the message was one of unity and dialogue between peoples, through the universal language of art. A luminous legacy The Maxi Canvas of August 16, 1986, was not just a work of art, but a visionary gesture that still speaks to us today of the need to preserve and protect beauty. As Pierre Carnac, friend and biographer of Salvador Dalí, said: "In the year 4000, only one painting will remember our time: Carlo Riccardi's luminous circle.