While Fornasetti was a war exile in Switzerland in 1945, he planned a limited edition erotic book he called Elogium Mentulae, which literally translates as Elegy for the Penis, comprising 69 pencil and ink drawings based on male genitalia, each accompanied by an appropriate text from modern and ancient authors. In a style reminiscent of the Renaissance artist Guiseppe Arcimboldo, Fornasetti turned phalluses into noses, snakes, bulls and fruit stands, and transformed breasts and testicles into grapes. At the time a publisher was not found for the project, and Fornasetti put it aside. In 1973 he redrew the plates that had been lost and sought to release the book with his friend, the publisher Vanni Scheiwiller. This attempt also failed, however, and Elogium Mentulae, a key work by one of the modern age’s most prolific artists and creators, remains unpublished.

Piero’s son Barnaba explains that ‘He used to tell me that even in his dreams he saw incredible and surreal visions of this kind. My father was always fighting against the moralism that forbade the exhibition of the naked human body.’

We have included here all the Elogium Mentulae images we can find, together with some of his paintings on the same theme; we would be delighted to hear of others that have survived.