In the church of San Gottardo in Corte, one of Salvadori’s early works has been placed at the center of the space in front of the fresco from the school of Giotto that is bounded by four columns: 10 frecce nei colori di minerali (10 Arrows in the Colors of Minerals), 1969-70. The work is composed of ten iron arrows, each of which has been coated with a different metal, gold, copper, bronze, iron, brass, tin, chrome, nickel and cadmium, or burnished. The work had been shown in his first solo exhibition held at Franz Paludetto’s gallery LP220 in Turin in 1970 and then again at the 8th Biennale de Paris in 1973. It represents a significant step that Salvadori took at the beginning of his artistic research, as it marks the origin of his interest in metals.

The metals and colors present in 10 frecce nei colori di minerali are like letters of an alphabet dictated by a syntax that alludes to the forces of nature, to the invigorating energy shared by their differ- ent manifestations and to a sense of unity that, in the artist’s view, underlies the apparent diversity of phenomena. Through this work Salvadori comes to identify the significance of the arrow as a sym- bol of an inner spiritual need.

Given the complexity of the layers of meaning visualized in such apparently simple forms, the work 10 frecce nei colori di minerali can be seen as a declaration of intent on the artist’s part. So much so that Germano Celant, one of the art historians who has followed Salvadori’s artistic activity most closely, would assert in a critical essay written in 2019 that behind the choice of this particular form “lies the stimulus to use the object as a possible solid and physi- cal representation of ‘another’ reality.”

10 frecce nei colori di minerali is positioned in dialogue with Stella (Star), 2025. Created specifically for this occasion, the work finds an ideal rapport with the one overlying it and alludes in its form, as is often the case in the artist’s more recent practice, to a celestial dimension.