Grandi mostre. Arte e rebus a Roma. Una, nessuna e centomila soluzioni.

The article presents the exhibition Ah che rebus! organized in Rome, Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica (2010-2011): a rebus (from Latin plural ablative of res: "by things") is a word puzzle that uses the images of things to represent words or parts of words, offering two different interpretations, the first coinciding with what is visible and the second one coming out from a new combination of elements. From Renaissance examples of rebuses present in devises (imprese), the exhibition shows the evolution of this word game during the centuries, through Lorenzo Lotto’s Lu(ci)na portrait, Della Bella’s fans and Mitelli etchings. XIX’s century rebus used for satirical or political purposes culminate in the invention of the modern rebus, a sketch where images must be read to find the solution of the riddle. Many important artists in XX century have been inspired by the rebus drawn by Maria Ghezzi Brighenti and published, since 1952, in the Italian magazine “La Settimana Enigmistica”. Video-rebus, graffiti-rebus, digital-rebus demonstrate that this linguistic and figurative device is still alive in contemporary culture.